Umakanth's Hive!

The form cannot be submitted to the Web server

2011-11-10T15:27:00.000-08:00

Issue definition:
Whenever you submit an infopath form "The form cannot be submitted to the Web server either because your computer is offline or because the host server is currently unavailable. If this problem persists, contact your network administrator"

SharePoint People Picker Integration issues

2011-10-10T17:33:00.000-07:00

Recently my business users complained that they can not add users to the site as they can not search the user names using the people picker. Iwent to SSP -> User Profiles and My Sites -> User Profiles and Properties ->View Import Connections. Every thing was good. I started a full import to make sure the user profiles are up to date. It completed in about an hour and imported users from the actual domain.

The problem we run into is that I was able to find the users from the "domainA" domain on which the moss server is located. I found out that by default People Picker can only find people in the resource domain - the domain that MOSS servers are in. For other domains/forests, you'll need to run the following command:

Stsadm.exe –o setproperty –pn peoplepicker-searchadforests –pv -url

The format of is a list of

forest:DnsName,LoginName,Password
or
domain:DnsName,LoginName,Password

separated by semicolon.

If they are trusted domains/forests, then it is not necessary to pass in the LoginName or Password, just in the format of
forest:DnsName
or
domain:DnsName

If the Password is specified in the forest:DnsName,LoginName,Password or domain:DnsName,LoginName,Password,
please run the below:

stsadm.exe -o setapppassword -password first. could be any string.
We will use to encrypt the Password in domain:DnsName,LoginName,Password or forest:DnsName,LoginName,Password and stored the encrypted Password in the database.
Also, please use the same to run stsadm.exe -o setapppassword -password on all machines where SharePoint is installed. For different web farm, please use different .

SharePoint and AD

2011-10-10T17:02:00.000-07:00

This post references the below article:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263449(v=office.12).aspx

It is good to understand how AD, domains, forests and trusts are working in order to get your people-picker working correctly (displays what you effectively want to see), rapidly (does not take ages to return a result) and reliably (its behavior is predictable and persistent over time). I am often surprise by the fact that very few SharePoint specialists really know about the windows and AD internals, this often lead to improper people picker configuration.
How it works, with the default configuration.

The people-picker is a SharePoint interface responsible for querying repositories for identities or groups in order to grant them permission in the SharePoint application. It is implemented as part of the WFE role, this means that when you’re using it, the WFE you’re connected to will attempt to contact AD in order to returns items matching your query’s criteria.

Here is, step by step, how it exactly works from an AD/Windows point-of-view:
A users submit a query to the people-picker
The WFE performs a DNS query in order to locate a domain controller hosting the Global Catalog Service. There are actually two possible DNS queries:
The first query will include the server’s Active Directory site name, in order to locate a domain controller that reside on the same site or “covers” it (does not reside in the same site but is configured as a candidate to receive request from originating from that site).If that first query succeeds, there’ll be no second.
It it fails and the DNS reports that there is no such name, a second query will take place without any reference to the server’s site.

with an IP address of a DC in hand, SharePoint will initiate a connection from a local random port to the remote port 3368 (Global Catalog LDAP over TCP) against the select domain controller. This first connection, which is is anonymous, will report to the SharePoint server extra information over the DC it contacted. It will include various LDAP information, the its exact capabilities as well as the authentication mechanism it supports. This entry point is known as the “Root” or “RootDSE”

Once SharePoint know how to “talk” to AD, it will perform a query whose part of the parameters are based on the users' input. This query is actually programmatically powered by the System.DirectoryService Namespace. since that query is made against the Global Catalog Service, it can only use a subset of the AD attribute (known as the partial attribute set). the exact list of attributes depends on the Windows version of the DC and on the presence of schema extension (MS Exchange, OCS or custom…). If the AD requires authentication, which is by default the case, SharePoint will authenticate using the context of the IIS application pool the SharePoint web application runs under. It can be Local system or Network Service (then DOMAIN\SERVERNAME$ is used) or a specified user
SharePoint displays the results to the user

The query, as stored in the code:
(&(objectCategory=person)(objectClass=user)(!(userAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=2))((name={0}*)(displayName={0}*)(cn={0}*)(mail={0}*)(sn={0}*)(SamAccountName={1}*)(proxyAddresses=SMTP:{0})(proxyAddresses=sip:{0}){2}))", "(&(objectCategory=person)(objectClass=user)(!(userAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=2))((name={0})(displayName={0})(cn={0})(mail={0})(samAccountName={0})(proxyAddresses=SMTP:{0})(proxyAddresses=sip:{0})))", "(&(objectCategory=person)(objectClass=user)(!(userAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=2))((mail={0})(proxyAddresses=SMTP:{0})))"), new SearchParameter("(&(objectCategory=group)((name={0}*)(displayname={0}*)(cn={0}*)(SamAccountName={1}*)(mail={0}*)(proxyAddresses=SMTP:{0}){2}))", "(&(objectCategory=group)((name={0})(displayname={0})(SamAccountName={0})(mail={0})(proxyAddresses=SMTP:{0})))", "(&(objectCategory=group)((mail={0})(cn={0})(proxyAddresses=SMTP:{0})))"), new SearchParameter("(&(objectCategory=group)(groupType:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=2147483648)((name={0}*)(displayname={0}*)(cn={0}*)(SamAccountName={1}*){2}))", "(&(objectCategory=group)(groupType:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=2147483648)((name={0})(displayName={0})(cn={0})(samAccountName={0})))

The query criteria in clear:
A user or a group
If it is user, at least of of the following attribute must begin with the input the user provided: name, displayName, cn, mail, sn, SamAccountName, proxyAddresses (with SMTP or sip)
It it is a user it must not be disabled
If it is a group, at least of of the following attribute must begin with the input the user provided: name, displayname, cn, SamAccountName
if it is a group, it must be a security group (domain local, global or universal), not a distribution group

The following attributes are requested to be returned for each record found:
objectSID
mail
displayName
title
department
proxyAddresses
cn
samAccountName
groupType
userAccountControl
distinguishedName

And finally, the following server controls are specified:
LDAP_PAGED_RESULT_OID_STRING: Page the results and get 20 results per page
LDAP_SERVER_DOMAIN_SCOPE_OID: Instructs the DC not to generate LDAP continuation references in response to a search operation.
Key points:
By default, SharePoint only knows about the AD forest its server(s) belong(s) to
SharePoint uses DC locator DNS records to locate a DC hosting the Global Catalog Service
It issues a queries using the LDAP-like dialect against that Global Catalog Service using System.DirectoryService Namespace
There is no “security trimming” per se. The queries returns the results based on what the IIS application pool identity is allowed to see, not the end-user’s identity

Still unclear to me:
In the case (non default and not recommended), in the case the IIS Application pool runs under the context of a user from another domain, which domain controller of which domain will be used?

Querying Additional Forest or Domains
In this section, I will cover the most frequent configuration: the SharePoint server belongs to a forest and/or domain that has 2-way trusts established with other forests or domain. The accounts of the users accessible SharePoint therefore belong to those trusted domains and since the trust is in both direction, the identity of the IIS application pool is also capable of authenticating against those trusted domains.

In order to instruct SharePoint to query those trusted domain or forests, the command “STSADM.exe -o setproperty -pn peoplepicker –searchadforests” must be used. But it seems like many people are getting confused, for good reasons, with the exact syntax of the parameter to be passed.

first you keep to gather the following information:
Do you want to query a forest (in this case, you’ll need a forest-trust) or a domain (in this case, an external trust is sufficient)
What is the DNS name of the forest you wish to query (also the DNS name of its root domain) or what is the DNS name of the
Then, based on the information above, you can assemble the parameter correctly. The configuration of each forest or domain to be queried must be separated with a semi-colon and inside the configuration, the first word must be forest: or domain: and it must be followed by a valid DNS name. Example:
STSADM.exe -o setproperty -pn peoplepicker–searchadforests –pv “forest:dune.local;domain:carthag.local;domain:tuono.local”
Key points:
The DC Locator process used with the standard configuration is still applicable BUT is extended beyond the local forest boundaries. This means that the SharePoint servers must be able to resolve names of remote forests/domains domain controllers (SRV records and A records)
Also, Active Directory Sites should be identically named between forests, otherwise, SharePoint may not target the “closest” domain controller
If you use “Selective authentication” or “SID Filtering” in order to restrict authentication through trusts, you must make sure that the IIS application pool identity is allowed to authenticate against the remote forest/domain it queries
Needless to say that if there are firewall between SharePoint and the remote forest/domains, they must be configured adequately
As I said above,if the “forest” argument is specified, a forest-trust must be in place
If you still wish to query the forest/domain SharePoint belongs to, you’ll have to add it as part of the parameter too
If you configure a forest to be queried, it is not necessary to declare all or some child domains separately, they will be queried anyway
If “forest” is specified, the Global Catalog Service will be used to perform the query, if “Domain” is specified, the LDAP service will be used instead. Global Catalog (GC in short) can query all objects inside a given forest BUT knows only, as stated above, about a limited set of attributes while LDAP knows about ALL attributes but its boundaries is the domain it is targets
Do not forget to perform IISRESET on each SharePoint server where the configuration must be applied

Still unclear to me:
I have a great level of certainty that the query against each forest/domain are not performed in parallel, at least not the DNS part
The One-way trust Configuration

This configuration is identical to the above except that since the IIS application pool identity is unable to authenticate against the remote forest/domain due to the limitation set by one-way trust, alternate credentials must be specified. Those credentials must be from the forest/domain to be queried or from a trusted domain, as long as it is allowed to authenticate and is not denied to logon remotely.

The tough part of the job in this case is to apply the configuration.
first, a key must be generated in order to encrypt/decrypt the alternate credentials that will be used, in order to do so, you have to run the command hereunder on every SharePoint server where the people picker will be used (shortcut: do it on all servers!):

STSADM.exe -o setapppassword -password MYPASSWORD. where MYPASSWORD is the key –> it makes sense that the more complex, the better but is is not ruled by the Windows password policy

Secondly, you have to provide the list of forest/domains to be queried as well as the credentials to do so. Each block is separated by semi-colons and each element in a block is separated by comma. Example:
STSADM.exe -o setproperty -pn peoplepicker–searchadforests –pv “forest:dune.local,DUNE\PAULA,PasswordOfPaulA;domain:carthag.local,CARTHAG\Gurney,PasswordOfGurney;domain:tuono.local,TUONO\SHANIA,PasswordOfShania”
Key points:
Make sure you have valid credentials for each forest/domain
Make sure each forest/domain element is correctly structured
Do not forget to perform IISRESET on each SharePoint server where the configuration must be applied
Troubleshooting Tips
Useful tools
NTLTEST command-line: (part of the windows Server 2008 Support tools or built-in Windows Server 2008)
Wireshark network capture utility
LDP.exe simple LDAP client (part of the windows Server 2008 Support tools or built-in Windows Server 2008)
Active Directory User and computer (ADUC) Console
ADInsight from MS Sysinsternals (not super reliable alas)
Global Approach
The most straightforward way to trace the behavior of the people picker is to take a network capture while performing the search from the Web GUI, taking care of flushing the DNS resolver cache (ipconfig /flushdns). Take this capture of the WFE your target with your tests and filter the results as follows:
Apply a display filter to show only DNS requests, you should see requests like the following:
If you attempt to query a domain: _ldap._tcp.Site-Name._sites.domain.local: type SRV, class IN (first attempts, in order to locate a DC in the same site) or _ldap._tcp.domain.local: type SRV, class IN (any DC in that domain, regardless of the site)
If you specified to query a forest, you should see _gc instead of _ldap
If you don’t see those DNS request or if you see them but they fail, make sure the SharePoint servers are able to resolve names from remote domains ad are configured with the correct DNS Servers and optionally with a list of suffixes
Once name resolution is working fine, go back to the capture and make sure you see LDAP (port 389) or GC (same as LDAP but on port 3268).
for each domain or forest, you should see a “bindRequest” with a successful response followed by a “seachRequest” followed by a successful response as well. drill-down into the search request for the details about the query submitted: the filter and conditions applied in particular
Retrieving the server’s AD site
Execute the command “NLTEST /dsgetsite”. It should return the AD site the SharePoint server belongs to. If it does not, there is a serious AD configuration problem ;)
Retrieving a DC for a given domain
Execute the command “NLTEST /dsgetdc:mydomain.local
If the list of flags it return includes the following, you’re ok:
CLOSE_SITE= the DC is in the same AD site as the SharePoint server or is “covering” that site
LDAP: the DC is LDAP server (all DCs are but must advertise it)
GC: the DC is also global catalog (NOT all DCs are but if they are, they must advertise it too)
Note: Other information returned by the command might also be useful for troubleshooting: Name and IP address of the DC…

Simple LDAP connection test
1. On the SharePoint server, start ldp.exe
2. Go to the menu “Connection” and click “Connect”. Enter the IP or the host name of the remote DC. You should test with a FQ host name in order to test DNS too. Select port 389 for LDAP or 3268 for GC. If it works, it will return a list of server-related information
3. repeat this test for each DC SharePoint would potentially target
Testing the credentials to connect to a remote domain using LDAP (one-way trust scenario in particular)

If the test above works, proceed to this one:
1. Return to the menu “connection” then click “Bind” then enter the credential of the remote domain to be browsed (including the domain name in the 3rd textbox
2. If it fails, you’ll see a message such as
res = ldap_bind_s(ld, NULL, &NtAuthIdentity, 1158); // v.3
{NtAuthIdentity: User=’myuser’; Pwd= ; domain = ‘mydomain’.}
Error <49>: ldap_bind_s() failed: Invalid Credentials.
3. If it succeeds, it will report
res = ldap_bind_s(ld, NULL, &NtAuthIdentity, 1158); // v.3
{NtAuthIdentity: User=’myuser’; Pwd= ; domain = ‘mydomain’.}
Authenticated as dn:’myuser’.
Top People-Picker Reliability/Performance Killers
The more forest/domains there are two query, the slower it will be to get results
Problematic Name Resolution Process: In order to resolve DC locator records, Windows will exhaust all possible name resolution methods, from DNS to broadcast… And this for each declared forest/domain
Unresponsive DC brings major slow down
Suboptimal/Inconsistence AD Site configuration: Site-awareness is a key factor, this makes sure SharePoint always query the nearest DC
Network devices/Security devices breaking the TCP traffic: from broken NIC to firewall, anything generating TCP retransmit or “forcibly closing” connections
Load on Active Directory/Domain controller or security settings on the domain controller (preventing DoS attacks for example)
If custom filter is used: Improperly written filter: make sure the complexity of criteria remains reasonable, only indexed attributed are queried and of course if the GC is used, only attributed that are part of the partial attribute set
Additional information’s
MS TechNet LDAP Query Basics
MS TechNet Select users from multiple forest domains
MS TechNet Peoplepicker-searchadforests: Stsadm property (Office SharePoint Server)
MS TechNet Active Directory Trust Types
MS KB How to query Active Directory by using a bitwise filter
Joel Oleson Multi Forest/Cross Forest People Picker peoplepicker-searchadcustomquery
Bill Baer Configuring SharePoint Products and Technologies for Cross-Forest Deployments
What’s next?
In the next posts, I will cover:
Additional filtering capabilities of LDAP searches
Detailed configuration for each scenario
how people picker is related to authentication and profile import (MOSS only)
Guidance to optimize people-picker in different scenario’s
And cut!

AJAX chart integration with a Sharepoint list

2010-02-23T14:44:00.000-08:00

1. Have the jqury installed to the local site or just refer the google API.
2. Type the following code in you CEWP's source!

<div id="jLoadMe" class="content"><strong>Name to display</strong></div>
<script type="text/javascript">if(typeof jQuery=="undefined"){
var jQPath=http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/;
document.write("<script src='",jQPath,"jquery.js' type='text/javascript'><\/script>");}
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
$("document").ready(function(){
var arrayList=$("td.ms-gb:contains(':')");
var coord= new Array();
var labels= new Array();
$.each(arrayList, function(i,e) {
var MyIf= $(e).text();
var txt= MyIf.substring(MyIf.indexOf('(')+1,MyIf.length-1);
// Extract the 'Y' coordinates
coord[i]=txt;
var txt1= MyIf.substring(MyIf.indexOf(':')+2,MyIf.indexOf("(")-1);
// Extract the labels
labels[i]=txt1+"("+txt+")";
//add also coordinates for better read });
var txt= coord.join(",");
var txt1= labels.join("");
// Adjust Chart Properties below - See Google Charts API for reference
var vinc= "<IMG src='http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=p3&chs=750x200&chd=t:"+txt+"&chl="+txt1+"'/>"; $("#jLoadMe").append("<p>"+vinc+"</p>")});
</script>

Immediate alerts not working on a list/document library.

2010-01-14T09:16:00.000-08:00

There are various issues with the sharepoint alerts.
Problem 1: Not a single site sends the alerts.
Problem 2: A specific site fails to send the alerts
Problem 3: A specific user fails to receive the alerts

Problem 1:Not a single site sends the alerts.
After registering for alerts on a SharePoint list/document library, you get the welcome email "You have successfully created an alert for 'doc lib' ". But you will never get the actual alert mail for the changes on the document/item you marked for an alert.
Reason:
There is a config/environement change that was not reflected into the config database or config cache.
Fix:

Stop the WSS Sharepoint timer service
start -> admin tools -> services -> Windows Sharepoint Services timer -> stop.
delete the un used Alternate Access Mappings(CA-> Operations -> Alternate Access mappings), un used IP configurations, orphans in the DB.
Clear the config cache.
- Go to the local sharepoint config files folder:
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\SharePoint\Config\ConfigDB ID
- Delete all the XML files and do not delete the "cache.ini" file.
- Delete all the numbers in the "cache.ini" , type 1 and save it.
Start the WSS Sharepoint timer service
start -> admin tools -> services -> Windows Sharepoint Services timer -> Start.
Check whether the timer job is successful or not. Also see the Immediate alerts status.
CA -> Operations -> Timer Job Status
Check whether the 'alerts' is configured in Minutes :
A -> Operations -> Timer Job definitions.
Some times there will be a problem with the mail provider settings.Check the SMTP Relay settigns to see the IP Address configured properly.

Problem 2:A specific site fails to send the alerts
Reason:
There is a config/environment change in a specific site. In other scenarios, if a site is migrated from different environment or another version. So, you do not get alerts on that specific site.

Fix:

(Do this step if your environement is flexible)
Create a new web application/new content database and test for the alerts. On success, move this perticular problematic site to the new web application/content database.
Force the "alerts enabled" command on the perticular site.
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN> stsadm.exe -o setproperty -pn alerts-enabled -pv "true" -url http://sitename/.
You will be fine.

Other commands:
Though you can do all these below commands through CA UI, STSADM is preferred.

To verify whether a site has the alerts enabled:
Stsadm.exe-o getproperty -url http://sitename/ -pn alerts-enabled
This will return Yes or No.
To disable alerts on a site:
stsadm.exe -o setproperty -pn alerts-enabled -pv "false" -url http://sitename/
Verify the job-immediate-alerts. Should be every 5 minutes.
stsadm.exe -o getproperty -url http://sitename/ -pn job-immediate-alerts
If the above command returns any thing other than "Every 5 minutes between 0 and 59", set the time
stsadm.exe -o setproperty -pn job-immediate-alerts -pv "every 5 minutes between 0 and 59" -url http://sitename/

Problem 3: A specific user fails to receive the alerts
Reason:
There must a problem with the registered email id. Or user might not have at least "read" access on the document library.

Fix:

Check for the user access on the doc library. If not, add the user with at least "read" access.
It may happen that the user gets the initial mail. Coz, initial mail doesnt look for the permissions before sending the mail.
While configuring, use the "email id" instead of the usual "Domain\Name". If succeeded, then there must be a problem with the email id registered.
To confirm the email not in sync,
SQL -> Associated Content Database -> Tables -> ImmedSubscriptions -> email field.

Programmatically Deleting versions from a Sharepoint Document library

2009-12-22T08:58:00.000-08:00

Some programming tasks are straight forward with SharePoint API. But, some times, you gotta be tricky.
There is a trick to delete the versions from a SharePoint document library.
each time a version is deleted from the document library, item index will be changed. So, the version item collection gets flushed for each and every delete. To deal with this item Index change, we need to itereate through all the folders and files and make sure to delete the first indexed file always(file.Versions[0].Delete()). This makes sure that the lowest indexed item will be deleted for each and every index flush.

SPSite site = new SPSite("http://servername/sites/sitecollname");
SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb();  
web.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;
SPDocumentLibrary docLib=(SPDocumentLibrary)web.Lists["Documents"];
foreach (SPListItem folder in docLib.Folders)
  {
     for (int i = 0; i < folder.Folder.Files.Count; i++)
         {
SPFile file = folder.Folder.Files[i];
int counter = file.Versions.Count;

for (int j = 0; j < counter; j++)
{
if (file.Versions[0] != null)
{
file.Versions[0].Delete();
}

}
}
}
web.Update();
web.AllowUnsafeUpdates = false;

Display name synchromization with the AD changes

2009-12-18T12:59:00.000-08:00

Problem:
Sharepoint user display name doesnot change with the AD changes.
Fix:
Check the status of the sync:
STSADM -o sync -listolddatabases 0
check the timestamp that shows the sync. If not in sync follow the below.

Go to SCA -> SSP-> User Profiles and My Sites -> User profiles and properties
Start the full import to synchronize the chagnes in the AD or to remove the un wanted profiles. To update the Profile info with the new changes in the AD, just go for the incremental update.
Click on the import source or import schedule link to get the Configure Profile Import page.
Click on the "Refresh" to affact the changes.

Sharepoint User Profiles And Properties - Access denied

2009-10-07T12:33:00.000-07:00

Problem definition:

Even though you are the farm administrator, site collection admin for the ssp, you get access denied error, when you click on the 'User profiles and properties'.
Sharepoint Central Admin -> SharedServices1 -> User Profiles and My Sites -> User profiles and properties'

Fix:

Go to Personalization services permissions link located under the User Profiles and My Sites section on the shared services1 page.
Sharepoint Central Admin -> SharedServices1 -> User Profiles and My Sites -> Personalization services permissions
Add users/group. Add yourself with the manage user profiles permissions.
If you are the admin then add the user who complained about the access.

SharePoint logs issue : Monitorable Tracing Service lost trace events

2009-09-29T09:21:00.000-07:00

Problem:
Some times SharePoint logs show some weird junk lines like:
"wsstracing.exe (0x0984) 0x1728 ULS Logging Unified Logging Service uls1 Monitorable Tracing Service lost trace events.Current value 230. "

Fix:
1. Restart the WSS Tracing service.
start-> programs -> administrative tools -> services -> Windows Sharepoint services Tracing service.

2. Restart the Windows Administration service Adminsitrtion service also.

Event log error 5555

2009-09-28T06:08:00.000-07:00

Problem:

Failure trying to synch web application xyz, ContentDB xyz Exception message was A duplicate site ID xyz (http://xyz.com) was found. This might be caused by restoring a content database from one server farm into a different server farm without first removing the original database and then running stsadm -o preparetomove. If this is the cause, the stsadm -o preparetomove command can be used with the -OldContentDB command line option to resolve this issue.

Reason:

The above error due to the reason that the table “sistesynch” in the db. Usually the profile synchronizations service runs once in an hour. Database id‘s in this table “sistesynch” do not match with the database id’s from the config database. There will not be any problem with the Site ID’s.

Fix:

Whenever you attach/detach the content database, this table has to be updated. If you delete the rows in this table manually, this error goes away and the table will be auto filled back with correct sites and database id’s next time when the service runs i.e an hour.

If you cant delete the table row entries manually(access restriction) , you can do the same operation using the following stsadm command.

stsadm -o sync -DeleteOldDatabases 0

Once you execute this command, it will list all the deleted rows and after that table “sistesynch” will be auto populated.

Note: perform the above command each time you attach/detach the content databases. Best practice is to script this command along with the actual routines

Dealing with Sharepoint Orphans

2009-06-03T11:43:00.000-07:00

Orphans are the objects in a SharePoint schema that live without a parent or child relationship in the database. The entries that made in the config DB are incomplete or missing some thing.
Reasons for the Orphans creation:

Usually orphans get createed while migrating the sites from SPS 2003 to MOSS.
User creating the site, doesnt have enough permissions on the DB.
User closing the site creation module abruptly.

Symptoms:
Usually, orphaned sites will not be available to view from the browser. In some cases I saw some orphaned sites that look fine from the browser, but breakes the lists and sub sites eventually.
There is no UI module in the CA or any site settins page available to detect an orphan. Orphans can only be detected through SQL or below STSADM command.

stsadm -o databaserepair -url -databasename [-deletecorruption]

The above STSADM command is for MOSS orphans that exist in the configDB.
Use the below SPSADM command to remove the orphans in the SPS 2003.

spsadm repairorphans portalURI.

Some orphans are very adamant and needs the manual removal. Below is the explaination and fix for each kind of orphan.

Types or orphans:
1. Configuration Orphans: These orphans are very easy to deal with, as these orphans could only mess up your configuration DB. Possibly, they do not have a content DB entry for a child. Detaching the corrputed content database from your farm and reattach it would fix the issue. This is a kind of config DB flush that would refresh the sitelist that is tied to that content database and removes the wrong entry automatically.
2 . Content Database Orphans: These are bit complex to deal with.
There are 2 essential types of content database orphans.

Type 1 Scenario(reactive maintenance):

Site content is is available in the farm's content database but not mapped to the proper configuration . In this kind of scenario, a blank new site is mapped to the configuration database.
So, the symptom is, whenever you access a site you always endup viewing a blank site.
Fix:
> Backup the orphaned site .
> Delete the orphaned site.
> Detach and reattach the database that contains the site's content.
This fix will edit/remap the site to the configuration database.
Type 2 Scenario(Planned Maintenance):

Site mapping is good, all the sites are rendered properly. But you see orphans in a content database or other databases.
Fix:
Backup your production site and delete it. Once that completes detach and attach the database that contains orphan, this will in effect map the orphan to the configuration database and render it accessible. You can then delete it using STSADM. Perform these steps until you have cleaned all orphans. Once all orphans are clean you can then restore your production site back into the farm.

The above fixes are good for any terrific orphans legally. When I say legally, by the means of following the Microsoft's headsup. As an extra information, I experimented on deleting the site intries and re-mapping in a very low level( by deleting the entries from the SQL server directly). THIS IS NOT RECOMMENDED UNLESS YOU ARE AN EXPERT. PLAN FOR THE FARM BACKUP OR DISASTER RECOVERY BEFORE PERFORMING BELOW OPERATIONS.

Run the below command:
stsadm -o databaserepair -url -databasename [-deletecorruption]
Get the XML out put and note down the corrupted site ID and all the corrupted List IDs
To double check whether its a valid ID, go to the 'webs' table and check.
Script:
select * from webs where id = 'SITEIDABCD-ABCD.....'
select * from aptb_lists where tp_id = 'LISTIDABCD-ABCD...'
To Delete a orphaned LIST or DOC LIB entry in the content DB, follow the script:
delete from aptb_lists where tp_id = 'Orphan list ID'
delete from docs where tp_id = 'Orphan list ID'
delete from Userdata where tp_id = 'Orphan list ID'
To delete a site entry manually follow below scripts
delete from webgroupmembership where webid= ‘LISTID'
delete from webmembers where webid= ‘LISTID'
delete from webs where id = 'LISTID'

Avoiding Orphans:

Some times, when you try to create a site collection from the central admin or stsadm, the site collection creation process takes several minutes. If you dont have the patience or skeptic that the creation wizard got hanged, then human tendency will try to close/back the window. But actually behind the screens, sharepoint was done with the site collection creatin part for some extent. At this time if the site collection creation process is paused or stopped by the admin, sharepoint leave the site as an orphan. Remind users that creating and deleting a site can be a sometimes several minute process. Regardless of how long it takes let the application itfinish what is doing. If it times out then try again but never click back, stop, or close the window when performing these types of administration tasks. Network Latency, Web front end performance and SQL backend performance can all attribute to a slow create or delete statement. Be patient .

More about the Orphans:
http://blogs.technet.com/corybu/archive/2007/05/31/sharepoint-orphans-explained.aspx

http://www.songhaysystem.com/kb/number/2076072084/subject/winos

How to Set New Ringtones For Your iPhone

2009-04-08T23:41:00.000-07:00

Apple charges you $2 per song in order to set it a song a ring tone.

Below is the procedure to add a song for free and legal. All that's involved is a little bit of tinkering. For those of us who use Windows and Mac as Operating Systems, it will work perfectly fine. Now, all you need to get started is an iPhone itunes software, and a PC that uses Mac or Windows as an operating system.

Open the iTunes Player.
Add the song from the hard disk (File -> Add File to Library) From the library -> music, select and pick the song that you want as a ring tone. If you wanna choose the part of the song, right click on the song, and select the option get info -> select the tab 'Options'. From there, just type the start time of the ring tone in the box right after start time. This should be in the format minute: second. For example, 3:34. Similarly, repeat the exercise for stop time as well.To make a ring tone of about 40 seconds is advisable. Clon the OK button. Now go to the song again and select the option that converts the current selected media into AAC format. This will take a few minutes. A duplicate version will be created. Now right click on the ring tone again and delete it. Next, click on the keep files button. Now, search the file that you just created. It will most probably be located in the iTunes folder. The file format would be .m4a. Now, from the Tools Folder Options, you need to change the file format from .m4a to .m4r.

A simple double click, when done slowly, would also do it though. Another method is to rename the file in case of Windows, and get info for those who use Mac OS. The system will automatically warn you about the change in the file format. You can choose to ignore that. Now, double-click on the newly created ring tone file. The iTunes player will add the particular media in the ring tones category in the iTunes library. Now, just connect the iPhone and sync that ring tone.

Not only does it save you a buck or two, it saves time and gives you your whole music collection to choose from!

Hiding the List Menu options (Views, context menu items)

2009-03-20T15:32:00.000-07:00

Wrap up the following Javascript code into the content editor webpart!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

hideListViewToolbarItems("Edit in Datasheet", "export to Spreadsheet",
"view rss feed","settings:create view");
function hideListViewToolbarItems()
{
var menuItem;
var menuItemName;
var menuItemIndex=-1;
var menuItemNames=new Array("edit in datasheet",
"open with windows explorer",
"connect to outlook",'export to spreadsheet','view rss feed','alert me'
,"create column","settings:create view","list settings",
"document library settings","explorer view","all documents",
"all items","modify this view",
"view:create view","new document",
"new item","new folder","upload document",
"upload multiple documents");
var menuItems = new Array("EditInGridButton",
"OpenInExplorer","OfflineButton",
"ExportToSpreadsheet","ViewRSS",
"SubscribeButton","AddColumn",
"AddView","ListSettings","ListSettings",
"View1","DefaultView",
"DefaultView","ModifyView","CreateView",
"New0","New0",
"NewFolder","Upload","MultipleUpload");
var allMenuItems = document.getElementsByTagName('ie:menuitem');
for(var i = 0; i < hideListViewToolbarItems.arguments.length; i++ )
{
menuItemName= hideListViewToolbarItems.arguments[i].toLowerCase();
for (j=0; j < menuItemNames.length; j++)
{
if(menuItemNames[j]==menuItemName)
{
menuItemIndex = j;
break;
}
}
menuItem=menuItems[menuItemIndex];

for (var l = 0; l < allMenuItems.length; l++)
{
if(menuItemName.indexOf(":")!=-1)
{
menuItemName = menuItemName.split(":")[1];
}
if (allMenuItems[l].id.indexOf(menuItem)!=-1
&& allMenuItems[l].text.toLowerCase() == menuItemName)
{
// For FireFox Compatibility
var parentNodeOfMenuItem = allMenuItems[l].parentNode;
parentNodeOfMenuItem.removeChild(allMenuItems[l]);
break;
}
}
}
}

Ref: Ayman's blogspot

insufficient memory to continue the execution of the program

2009-03-16T14:54:00.000-07:00

While clicking on the 'Search settings' page, you get the following error:
'insufficient memory to continue the execution of the program'
Fix:

Perform the below steps on every WFE in the farm:
net stop WSSTimerV3
net start WSSTimerV3
If you are not through the first step, kill the MS Search.exe on each WFE
Task Manager -> Processes -> MSSearch.exe -> right click -> end the process
(If you cant see the process in the list, check the 'show processes from all users')
Try flushing the local mso config cache to avoid this error throwing often.

Javascript Error while editing the Content Editor Webpart

2009-03-03T06:57:00.000-08:00

This error is due to the JavaScript plug-ins (HtmlEditor.js or BFORM.js) files in the 1033 folder on the 12 hive. When you add the SP1, it did not update these two files to compliance with .js codes in 'content editor' web parts. These kind of issues occur when you miss the installation sequence, i.e. SP1 was added after the java script plug-ins. Thus, unable to control the files later.

Steps to recover:

If you have more than one severs running in the form, go to the server in the form, where the Content editor popups are working fine.
Go to: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\1033
Replace the HtmlEditor.js , BFORM.js and OWS.js with the healthy server's files.

While trying to edit(edit->modify shared webpart-> rich text editor) a Content Editor Webpart, Rich text editor window will popup.
Due to the popup blocker flags on the browsers, this popup window will be blocked. To avoid this, Microsoft added the fix within the servive packs that will go and edit the javascript plug-ins on the MOSS 2007 . This update goes with the installation of the WSS SP1.

PDF files search in sharepoint!

2009-02-27T13:50:00.000-08:00

Hidden truth is, Sharepoint doesn't have any of its own search mechanisms. Its just a postman between the client and the database server, where all the sharepoint content is stored. Sharepoint server takes the request string and builds a query to be passed to the SQL server. Upon the query, SQl server passes the string to its own engine! File indexing is maintained on the Index server.

By default, SharePoint only searches the .txt, .htm, .doc, .xls, and .ppt. Coz, SQL Server can crawl through the base file extensions. PDF is a Binary file type can't really be searched with the SQL full text search engine, as it cant understand the format of PDF. So, Adobe came out with its own free filters.
Adobe 5.0 iFilter Download
Adobe 6.0 iFilter Download
You need to follow the installation procedure on the down load page and install the iFilter on the INDEX server.

PDF Docuement Full Text Search:

If you not install the iFilter on the Index server, PDF files will be shown in the search reasults matching the title name only. But, text inside the PDF file is not indexed and not shown in the search resutls. Inorder to index the content inside a PDF docuement(Full Text Search), you need to apply the iFilter on the Index server.

After the full crawl, new uploaded files that are uploaded before the Full Crawl and after the iFilter install are full text indexed automatically. But, some times the files which are uploaded before the IFilter was installed cannot be added to the full text indexing automatically. We need force the full text indexing on these old files by disabling full text indexing and enabling it again in central administration. If it’s not effected by using Central Admin UI, we can use Query Analyzer to force a rebuild, like..

USE WSS Content DB Name
EXEC sp_fulltext_catalog 'STS_servername', 'rebuild'

PDF Icon display:

By default PDF files are shown with an Internet explorer icon in the serach results. Follow the below procedure to associate an icon to the search results(Note: Even though you install iFilter on Index server, this PDF icon procedure has to be followed on each and every front end serer in the SharePoint server farm. i.e All web servers and Index serer)

Go to Adobe site and copy paste the PDF icon(PDFicon.gif) in the below folder.
drive:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\IMAGES
Edit the document mapping XML file(Docicon.xml)
Drive:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web server extensions\12\Template\Xml\Docicon.xml
Add the below line under the ByExtension node.
```
<Mapping Key="pdf" Value="pdfimage.gif"/>
```
Recycle the search service:
Run->cmd iisresetnet stop osearchnet start osearch

For 64-bit windows, you need to download the iFilter seperately. iFilter that comes along with the Adobe V8 installation supports only the 32-bit OS.

SQL Server's search engine deals with the base types and with the addition of new iFilters, it can go right with the associated formats. Microsoft comes out with a free iFilter for RTF. Other available IFilters for PDF, RTF, MSG, ZIP are fount at IFilterShop.

Additional procedure for Adobe v8 iFilter:

Adobe v8 comes along with the iFilter. So, no need to install a iFilter for Adobe V8 on a 32- bit windows. This applies to the 64-bit windows:

Add the filter-extension to the File types crawled:
Start -> Program -> Microsoft Office Server -> SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration -> Search Settings -> File Types -> New File Type (Add extension pdf here)
Modify the following Registry keys by changing their "Default" value to the new CLSID of the Adobe IFilter: {E8978DA6-047F-4E3D-9C78-CDBE46041603} HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office Server\12.0\Search\Setup\ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension\.pdfDefault -> {E8978DA6-047F-4E3D-9C78-CDBE46041603} HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\Search\Setup\ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension\.pdfDefault -> {E8978DA6-047F-4E3D-9C78-CDBE46041603}
Add the Installation directory of the Adobe Reader v.8 to the System Path. For example, if the Reader is installed on "C:\Program Files\Adobe", then add"C:\Program Files\Adobe\Reader 8.0\Reader"or"C:\Program Files\Adobe\Reader 9.0\Reader" to the system path by: Right Click on My Computer -> Properties -> Advanced -> Environment Variables -> Path (Under System Variables) -> Edit -> (Add "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Reader 8.0\Reader"). This effectively tells the adobe IFilter where to pick up the dependent DLLs.
Copy the .gif file that you want to use for the icon to the following folder on the server:SharePoint Server 2007- Drive:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\Template\Images
Edit the DOCICON.xml file to include the .pdf extension. Navigate to SharePoint Server 2007 - Drive:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web server extensions\12\Template\Xml Open the Docicon.xml file. Add an entry for the .pdf extension Save the DOCICON.xml
Recycle the search service: Run->cmd iisresetnet stop osearchnet start osearch
Now you can crawl and search PDF documents with v.8 Reader.

Ref: snahta.blogspot.com

SharePoint Performance

2009-02-26T12:22:00.000-08:00

Follow the below things to improve your sharepoint performance

Disable the debug mode by making the "debug" mode is "false" on all web applications
Web application's web.config -> debug mode "false"
Disable the debug mode at the machine.config.
Have blob cache enabled at the web application's web config file.
Web application's blob node should be some thing like this:

<BlobCache location=":\blobCache" path="\.(gifjpgpngcssjs)$" maxSize="10" max-age="86400" enabled="true"/>
This will enable the cache file. Al l the files are saved on each and every Web Front 's specified location. By specifying the cache time out ,  Browser will not rerequest them for about 86400 minutes.

JavaScript Tabs within the Content Editor Webpart

2009-02-21T15:48:00.000-08:00

Copy paste the following code into the 'Source Editor' section in the Content Editor Webpart.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Add the following inside the style node and embed inside the head and html notes. Due to the constraints in the editor can't code exactly.

.ui-tabs-hide{display: none;}ul.ui-tabs-nav{ margin: 0; padding: 8px 0 0 0;}ul.ui-tabs-nav li { list-style: none; margin: 0; display: inline; font-size: 12px;}ul.ui-tabs-nav li a { padding: 5px; margin-right: 3px; border-bottom: none; text-decoration: none; color: #000000; text-transform:uppercase;}ul.ui-tabs-nav li a:hover { color: #000; background: #F1EEE7; text-decoration: none;}.ui-tabs-selected a { background-color: #F1EEE7!important; }ul.ui-tabs-nav li.ui-tabs-unselect a { background-color: #F1EEE7;}ul.ui-tabs-nav li.ui-tabs-unselect a:hover { color: #333; background-color: #F1EEE7;}.ui-tabs-panel { background-color: #F1EEE7; padding: 5px; line-height: 18px;}.ui-tabs-panel ul { margin-left: 0;}.ui-tabs-panel ul li { background-color: #F1EEE7; border-bottom: 1px solid #fff; padding: 5px 0 6px 20px;}

include the following in the body of the hml section after the head section.

div id="topsidebar"
ul class="ui-tabs-nav"
li class="ui-tabs-selected"
a href="#fragment-1

span Office /span /a
/li li class="" a href="#fragment-2" span Email /span /a /li /ul

div id="fragment-1" class="ui-tabs-panel ui-tabs-hide"
p Here are details corresponding to the hotel attendees will be staying at:
/p p a href=http://mcafee.com Office /a br / head quarters drive Plano TX 75050 br /
Tel: 1.111.111.1111Fax: 1-111-111-1111 /p /div div id="fragment-2" class="ui-tabs-panel ui-tabs-hide" p email me p Umakanth Nelige br / a href=mailto:umakanth.nelige@gmail.com Umakanth nelige E-mail/a br /111.111.1111 /p /div /div

download the JQuery files and copy paste in the content editor webparrt.

Silver Light displaying in a content editor webpart

2009-02-20T13:11:00.000-08:00

problem:

After uploading the .xap file to the webpart doc lib, and after pointing the xap file with an object tag in the content editor part's source code, you will not see the control.

Reason:
As the tag never understands the X, Y directinal values, it will display over the content editor.
Content Editor webpart was developed to be enclosed to the page's hidden DIV property, thus causing the tag control to fall in the invisible Div.

Work Around:

Set a fixed height and width in the web part appearance properties, and give the object tag a height and width of 100%,

OR
Set an absolute height and width for the object tag and leave the web part with non-fixed height and width

iPhone Allpications fail to run!

2009-02-08T16:30:00.000-08:00

Problem:
Last week I went to my friend's place and forgot to take my charger along with me! As I am a iPhone-junkie these days, played the games all night and chatted with my pals until I was kicked by the battery! As a desperate game freak, I connected my iPhone with my friend's PC.
Now, I cant play games anymore, as they never respond!

Technical Reason:
When I connected my iPhone with my friend's PC, my iPhone's Authentication module got bugged. Now the authentication (Id/pwds) for my i-Tunes and applications will not work, as they think that they are on the wrong iPhone!

Work around:

Connect your iPhone to your PC
Take the backup (Never forget this step any time)
Devices ->right Click on your Phone name -> backup
Un sync the Applications(Games)
Devices -> Click on the phone name -> in the right hand tabs area, click on the 'Applications' tab -> un check the 'sync applications' -> Apply -> Sync
De Authorize the computer to reset the iPhone Authentication to the scratch.
On the i-Tunes menu -> Store -> Deauthorize Computer -> Enter the ID & password.
Authorize the computer to reset the iPhone from scratch to a valid authentication
On the i-Tunes menu -> Store -> Authorize Computer -> Enter the ID & password.
Sync the Applications(Games)
Devices -> Click on the phone name -> in the right hand tabs area, click on the 'Applications' tab -> Check the 'sync applications' -> Apply ->Sync.

Now you are back to freaking games ..! Hav Fun ye..!!

Image rotator embedding in a content editor webpart.

2009-01-20T14:09:00.000-08:00

Place the images in a image library(eg, http://SiteCollName/sites/sitename/doclibname/Image3.JPG")

now, copy paste the below code in the content editor webpart.

<script language="JavaScript">

<!--function adArray()
{for (i=0; i*2<adArray.arguments.length; i++)
{
this[i] = new Object();
this[i].src = adArray.arguments[i*2];
this[i].href = adArray.arguments[i*2+1];}this.length = i;
}

function getAdNum()
{
dat = new Date();
dat = (dat.getTime()+"").charAt(8);
if (dat.length == 1)ad_num = dat%ads.length;
elsead_num = 0;return ad_num;
}
var ads = new adArray("http://google.com/",
"http://SiteCollName/sites/sitename/doclibname/Image2.JPG","http://www.microsoft.com",

"http://SiteCollName/sites/sitename/doclibname/Image3.JPG","http://www.google.com",

"http://SiteCollName/sites/sitename/doclibname/Image4.JPG","http://www.google.com");

var ad_num = getAdNum();

document.write('<div align="center"><A HREF="'+ads[ad_num].href+'" target="_blank"><IMG SRC="'+ads[ad_num].src+'" '+'BORDER=0 name=js_ad></A></div>');

link_num = document.links.length-1;

function rotateSponsor()

  if (document.images)

   ad_num = (ad_num+1)%ads.length;

   document.js_ad.src = ads[ad_num].src;

   document.links[link_num].href = ads[ad_num].href;

   setTimeout("rotateSponsor()",4000);

setTimeout("rotateSponsor()",4000);// --></script>

source: http://armsinfragilehands.blogspot.com/2008/10/sharepoint-image-rotator.html

change anonymous access settings options disabled

2009-01-13T13:05:00.000-08:00

Prob Definition:
Inorder to explain the prob definition, I will walk you through the entire Anonymous access settings froms the scratch.

While setting the Anonymous access to a document library,

You set Anonymous access on the desired IIS website:
IIS -> Websites -> double click on the desired Website -> Properties -> Directory Security -> check the anonymous access box
You set the anonymous access on the web application level
SCA -> Application management -> Application Security ->Authentication Providers -> Default -> Check the Anonymous access check box
You set the Anonymous access on the site that you desire
Site Actions -> Site Settings -> Advanced Permisions -> settings -> Anonymous access
Now when you try to set the Anonymous access on a particular document library/list, you try to go to the document library, -> Settings -> Document library settings -> permissions for this document library -> Settings -> Anonymous access
You get to see the available option disabled or grayed out.

Reason:

Document library you are trying to set the anonymous access is configured to allow only read access on the doc lib.

Fix:

Trick is with the Advanced settings.

Document library -> Settings -> Doc lib settings -> Adv settings -> Item-level Permissions -> Read Access -> All responses.

Note: Edit Access can be set any thing.
Show results can be set any thing

Modifying the person.aspx file to filter the display in sharepoint 2007

2009-01-04T16:48:00.000-08:00

Person.aspx will use various query strings to load the desired person's profile

accountname User's account name, e.g. (DOMAIN\username)
guid The user's guid in SharePoint
sid The user's sid from Active Directory
preferredname Tries to find a match based on the displayName attribute from Active Directory
user Takes various iterations of display names or usernames and tries to resolve to a user, by redirecting to _layouts/SelectUser.aspx.

Open the Person.aspx to see what controls are being used and concentrate on the ProfileViewer (the control that displays Profile Property values).

<SPSWC:ProfileViewer id="ProfileViewer" ShowBusinessCardIfEmpty="false" runat="server" />

this ProfileViewer is inherited from ProfileUI, the InitControl will have the code:

this.objLoader = ProfilePropertyLoader.FindLoader(this.Page);

this is the method call to get a loaded profile.
Now looking in to the ProfilePropertyLoader, will look for the object. If not found in the HttpContext.Items collection, that will create a new object.

The ProfilePropertyLoader has two properties that return a UserProfile object, ProfileCurrentUser (the profile for the browsing user) and ProfileLoaded (the profile of the user to be displayed, which may be the same as ProfileCurrentUser).

after getting to know the UserProfile object via ProfilePropertyLoader, create a filter web part, so that you could pass in filter or query values from the UserProfile to other web parts via Connections.

MSDN has a great article on creating a Filter provider web part, so follow that and add code to get user profile values and pass those into other web parts.

public ReadOnlyCollection<string> ParameterValues

 { 
    get  
  {

        // Get a reference to the ProfilePropertyLoader,

         // which contains the reference to the UserProfile

         Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.WebControls.ProfilePropertyLoader loader = Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.WebControls.ProfilePropertyLoader.FindLoader(this.Page);

        if (loader == null)

          return null;

       Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.UserProfile profile = loader.ProfileLoaded;

  if (profile == null)

           return null;

       string thirdPartyAppUserID = (string)profile["ThirdPartyAppUserID"].Value;

        if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(thirdPartyAppUserID))

            return null;

        List<string> thirdPartyAppUserIDList = new List<string>();

       thirdPartyAppUserIDList.Add(thirdPartyAppUserID);

         return new ReadOnlyCollection<string>(thirdPartyAppUserIDList);

    }   }

source:
http://www.sharepointblogs.com/toth/archive/2008/05/30/filtering-data-on-the-mysite-profile-page-person-aspx.aspx

Context changes in Sharepoint Designer

2009-01-02T23:20:00.000-08:00

current user's permission for that item is shown in the 'perm' attribute in SPD code view.
Open SharePoint Designer 2007 and navigate to the page containing the Data Form Web Part. (follow the "Steps to Reproduce" above) In Code view,search for the following peace of code:Perm="{ddwrt:CurrentRights()}" Replace it with the following peace of code:Perm="{@PermMask}" Save the page.

permanent solution:
Go to the folder where SharePoint Designer 2007 is installed. Usually it will be: "c:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12". Find the file CAML2XSL.XSL and open it in a text editor (I used Notepad). Look for the following peace of code (There should be only one occurrence of it) : ddwrt:CurrentRights() Replace it with the following peace of code: @PermMask Save the file

SharePoint 2007 (MOSS/WSS) - how to remove "Download a Copy" context menu from a Document Library

2008-12-20T13:25:00.000-08:00



Go to your 12 hive\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\1033 folder. Open up the Core.js file. Find the function AddSendSubMenu. Go to the last 3 lines:
           
strAction = "STSNavigate('" + ctx.HttpRoot + "/_layouts/download.aspx?" + "SourceUrl=" + currentItemEscapedFileUrl + "&Source=" + GetSource() + "&FldUrl=" + escapeProperly(ctx.SendToLocationUrl) + "')"; ;
            menuOption = CAMOpt(sm, L_DownloadACopy_Text, strAction, "");
            menuOption.id = "ID_DownloadACopy";

Now if you want to remove "Download a Copy" option from all the document libraries then comment all three lines.
If you want to remove it for some custom List Definition that you have created you may do like:
if(ctx.listTemplate !=10001)
{
           
strAction = "STSNavigate('" + ctx.HttpRoot + "/_layouts/download.aspx?" + "SourceUrl=" + currentItemEscapedFileUrl + "&Source=" + GetSource() + "&FldUrl=" + escapeProperly(ctx.SendToLocationUrl) + "')"; ;
            menuOption = CAMOpt(sm, L_DownloadACopy_Text, strAction, "");
            menuOption.id = "ID_DownloadACopy";
}

Where 10001 was your custom list template id.

If you want to do it for a specific Document Library then you would do like this:

if(ctx.listName !="{28958B49-8C76-4987-815C-CF5A107FF522}")
{
           
strAction = "STSNavigate('" + ctx.HttpRoot + "/_layouts/download.aspx?" + "SourceUrl=" + currentItemEscapedFileUrl + "&Source=" + GetSource() + "&FldUrl=" + escapeProperly(ctx.SendToLocationUrl) + "')"; ;
            menuOption = CAMOpt(sm, L_DownloadACopy_Text, strAction, "");
            menuOption.id = "ID_DownloadACopy";
}
 
As you can see you have to pass the list GUID as listName.

Actual post:
http://blogs.msdn.com/pranab/archive/2008/12/06/sharepoint-2007-moss-wss-how-to-remove-download-a-copy-context-menu-from-a-document-library.aspx

SharePoint 2007 (MOSS/WSS) - Adding header and footer in Word Document (.docx) with ItemAdded Event Receiver using OpenXML

2008-12-20T10:36:00.000-08:00

I used OpenXML to add the two metadata column values - document name as the header and modified date as footer while someone upload a document in document library. Please include a reference of  WindowsBase and DocumentFormat.OpenXml in the project. WindowsBase is included in .Net framework 3.0/3.5 and you have to download DocumentFormat.OpenXml separately.
Here is the code:
using System;
using System.Security.Permissions;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using Microsoft.SharePoint;
using System.IO;
using System.IO.Packaging;
using DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Packaging;
using System.Xml;
using System.Collections.Generic;

namespace AddHeaderFooterReceiver
{
    public class AddHeaderFooterEventReceiver : SPItemEventReceiver
    {
        public string GetFooter()
        {
            string footerVal = "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\" standalone=\"yes\" ?><w:ftr xmlns:ve=\"http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006\" xmlns:o=\"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office\" xmlns:r=\"http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/relationships\" xmlns:m=\"http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/math\" xmlns:v=\"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml\" xmlns:wp=\"http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/drawingml/2006/wordprocessingDrawing\" xmlns:w10=\"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word\" xmlns:w=\"http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/wordprocessingml/2006/main\" xmlns:wne=\"http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2006/wordml\"><w:p w:rsidR=\"00C24C70\" w:rsidRDefault=\"00C24C70\"><w:pPr><w:pStyle w:val=\"Footer\" /></w:pPr><w:r><w:t>Hi</w:t></w:r></w:p><w:p w:rsidR=\"00C24C70\" w:rsidRDefault=\"00C24C70\"><w:pPr><w:pStyle w:val=\"Footer\" /></w:pPr></w:p></w:ftr>";
            return footerVal;
        }
        public string GetHeader()
        {
            string headerVal = "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\" standalone=\"yes\" ?><w:hdr xmlns:ve=\"http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006\" xmlns:o=\"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office\" xmlns:r=\"http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/relationships\" xmlns:m=\"http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/math\" xmlns:v=\"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml\" xmlns:wp=\"http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/drawingml/2006/wordprocessingDrawing\" xmlns:w10=\"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word\" xmlns:w=\"http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/wordprocessingml/2006/main\" xmlns:wne=\"http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2006/wordml\"><w:p w:rsidR=\"00C8737A\" w:rsidRDefault=\"00C8737A\"><w:pPr><w:pStyle w:val=\"Header\" /></w:pPr><w:r><w:t>hello</w:t></w:r></w:p><w:p w:rsidR=\"00C8737A\" w:rsidRDefault=\"00C8737A\"><w:pPr><w:pStyle w:val=\"Header\" /> </w:pPr></w:p></w:hdr>";           
            return headerVal;
        }
        public void WDAddHeader(Stream headerContent, Stream fileContent)
        {
            //  Given a document name, and a stream containing valid header content,
            //  add the stream content as a header in the document.

            const string documentRelationshipType = "http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/relationships/officeDocument";
            const string wordmlNamespace = "http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/wordprocessingml/2006/main";
            const string headerContentType = "application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.header+xml";
            const string headerRelationshipType = "http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/relationships/header";
            const string relationshipNamespace = "http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/relationships";

            PackagePart documentPart = null;

            using (Package wdPackage = Package.Open(fileContent, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.ReadWrite))
            {
                //  Get the main document part (document.xml).
                foreach (System.IO.Packaging.PackageRelationship relationship in wdPackage.GetRelationshipsByType(documentRelationshipType))
                {
                    Uri documentUri = PackUriHelper.ResolvePartUri(new Uri("/", UriKind.Relative), relationship.TargetUri);
                    documentPart = wdPackage.GetPart(documentUri);
                    //  There is only one officeDocument.
                    break;
                }

                Uri uriHeader = new Uri("/word/header1.xml", UriKind.Relative);
                if (wdPackage.PartExists(uriHeader))
                {
                    //  Although you can delete the relationship
                    //  to the existing node, the next time you save
                    //  the document after making changes, Word
                    //  will delete the relationship.
                    wdPackage.DeletePart(uriHeader);
                }
                //  Create the header part.
                PackagePart headerPart = wdPackage.CreatePart(uriHeader, headerContentType);

                //  Load the content from the input stream.
                //  This may seem redundant, but you must read it at some point.
                //  If you ever need to analyze the contents of the header,
                //  at least it is already in an XmlDocument.
                //  This code uses the XmlDocument object only as
                //  a "pass-through" -- giving it a place to hold as
                //  it moves from the input stream to the output stream.
                //  The code could read each byte from the input stream, and
                //  write each byte to the output stream, but this seems
                //  simpler...
                XmlDocument headerDoc = new XmlDocument();
                headerContent.Position = 0;
                headerDoc.Load(headerContent);

                //  Write the header out to its part.
                headerDoc.Save(headerPart.GetStream());

                //  Create the document's relationship to the new part.
                PackageRelationship rel = documentPart.CreateRelationship(uriHeader, TargetMode.Internal, headerRelationshipType);
                string relID = rel.Id;

                //  Manage namespaces to perform Xml XPath queries.
                NameTable nt = new NameTable();
                XmlNamespaceManager nsManager = new XmlNamespaceManager(nt);
                nsManager.AddNamespace("w", wordmlNamespace);

                //  Get the document part from the package.
                //  Load the XML in the part into an XmlDocument instance.
                XmlDocument xdoc = new XmlDocument(nt);
                xdoc.Load(documentPart.GetStream());

                //  Find the node containing the document layout.
                XmlNode targetNode = xdoc.SelectSingleNode("//w:sectPr", nsManager);
                if (targetNode != null)
                {
                    //  Delete any existing references to headers.
                    XmlNodeList headerNodes = targetNode.SelectNodes("./w:headerReference", nsManager);
                    foreach (System.Xml.XmlNode headerNode in headerNodes)
                    {
                        targetNode.RemoveChild(headerNode);
                    }

                    //  Create the new header reference node.
                    XmlElement node = xdoc.CreateElement("w:headerReference", wordmlNamespace);
                    XmlAttribute attr = node.Attributes.Append(xdoc.CreateAttribute("r:id", relationshipNamespace));
                    attr.Value = relID;
                    node.Attributes.Append(attr);
                    targetNode.InsertBefore(node, targetNode.FirstChild);
                }

                //  Save the document XML back to its part.
                xdoc.Save(documentPart.GetStream(FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write));
            }
        }

        public void WDAddFooter(Stream footerContent, Stream fileContent)
        {
            //  Given a document name, and a stream containing valid footer content,
            //  add the stream content as a footer in the document.

            const string documentRelationshipType = "http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/relationships/officeDocument";
            const string wordmlNamespace = "http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/wordprocessingml/2006/main";
            const string footerContentType = "application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.footer+xml";
            const string footerRelationshipType = "http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/relationships/footer";
            const string relationshipNamespace = "http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/relationships";

            PackagePart documentPart = null;

            using (Package wdPackage = Package.Open(fileContent, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.ReadWrite))
            {
                //  Get the main document part (document.xml).
                foreach (System.IO.Packaging.PackageRelationship relationship in wdPackage.GetRelationshipsByType(documentRelationshipType))
                {
                    Uri documentUri = PackUriHelper.ResolvePartUri(new Uri("/", UriKind.Relative), relationship.TargetUri);
                    documentPart = wdPackage.GetPart(documentUri);
                    //  There is only one officeDocument.
                    break;
                }

                Uri uriFooter = new Uri("/word/footer1.xml", UriKind.Relative);
                if (wdPackage.PartExists(uriFooter))
                {
                    //  Although you can delete the relationship
                    //  to the existing node, the next time you save
                    //  the document after making changes, Word
                    //  will delete the relationship.
                    wdPackage.DeletePart(uriFooter);
                }
                //  Create the footer part.
                PackagePart footerPart = wdPackage.CreatePart(uriFooter, footerContentType);

                //  Load the content from the input stream.
                //  This may seem redundant, but you must read it at some point.
                //  If you ever need to analyze the contents of the footer,
                //  at least it is already in an XmlDocument.
                //  This code uses the XmlDocument object only as
                //  a "pass-through" -- giving it a place to hold as
                //  it moves from the input stream to the output stream.
                //  The code could read each byte from the input stream, and
                //  write each byte to the output stream, but this seems
                //  simpler...
                XmlDocument footerDoc = new XmlDocument();
                footerContent.Position = 0;
                footerDoc.Load(footerContent);

                //  Write the footer out to its part.
                footerDoc.Save(footerPart.GetStream());

                //  Create the document's relationship to the new part.
                PackageRelationship rel = documentPart.CreateRelationship(uriFooter, TargetMode.Internal, footerRelationshipType);
                string relID = rel.Id;

                //  Manage namespaces to perform Xml XPath queries.
                NameTable nt = new NameTable();
                XmlNamespaceManager nsManager = new XmlNamespaceManager(nt);
                nsManager.AddNamespace("w", wordmlNamespace);

                //  Get the document part from the package.
                //  Load the XML in the part into an XmlDocument instance.
                XmlDocument xdoc = new XmlDocument(nt);
                xdoc.Load(documentPart.GetStream());

                //  Find the node containing the document layout.
                XmlNode targetNode = xdoc.SelectSingleNode("//w:sectPr", nsManager);
                if (targetNode != null)
                {
                    //  Delete any existing references to footers.
                    XmlNodeList footerNodes = targetNode.SelectNodes("./w:footerReference", nsManager);
                    foreach (System.Xml.XmlNode footerNode in footerNodes)
                    {
                        targetNode.RemoveChild(footerNode);
                    }

                    //  Create the new footer reference node.
                    XmlElement node = xdoc.CreateElement("w:footerReference", wordmlNamespace);
                    XmlAttribute attr = node.Attributes.Append(xdoc.CreateAttribute("r:id", relationshipNamespace));
                    attr.Value = relID;
                    node.Attributes.Append(attr);
                    targetNode.InsertBefore(node, targetNode.FirstChild);
                }

                //  Save the document XML back to its part.
                xdoc.Save(documentPart.GetStream(FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write));
            }
        }

        public override void ItemAdded(SPItemEventProperties properties)
        {
            string extension = properties.ListItem.Url.Substring(properties.ListItem.Url.LastIndexOf(".") + 1);
            if (extension == "docx")
            {
                string headerContent = GetHeader().Replace("hello", properties.ListItem["Name"].ToString());
                string footerContent = GetFooter().Replace("Hi", properties.ListItem["Modified"].ToString());
                Stream headerStream = new MemoryStream(System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(headerContent));
                Stream footerStream = new MemoryStream(System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(footerContent));
                MemoryStream fileStream = new MemoryStream();
                fileStream.Write(properties.ListItem.File.OpenBinary(), 0, (int)properties.ListItem.File.TotalLength);
                WDAddHeader(headerStream, fileStream);
                WDAddFooter(footerStream, fileStream);
                properties.ListItem.File.SaveBinary(fileStream);
            }
        }
    }
}

Actual post: http://blogs.msdn.com/pranab/archive/2008/12/18/sharepoint-2007-moss-wss-adding-header-and-footer-in-word-document-docx-with-itemadded-event-receiver-using-openxml.aspx

The server could not complete your request. Contact your internet service provider or Web server administrator to make sure that the server has the Fr

2008-10-05T14:40:00.000-07:00

Problem:

While trying to open a site in the sharepoint designer, you get the error
The server could not complete your request. Contact your internet service provider or Web server administrator to make sure that the server has the Frontpage Server Extensions or SharePoint Services installed

Fix:

Go to the application server
IIS -> Application pools -> select the corresponding application pool -> right click -> recycle the application pool.
If you are still unable to get the page opened, try to open an individual .aspx page located directly under the site folder. Once the page is opened properly, try to open the desired actual '.aspx' or the '.master' file.

An error occurred during the processing of the page. The server block is not well formed.

2008-09-04T07:45:00.000-07:00

Reason:

Custom page layout/aspx page has some tags that were registered in the custom master page. So, when the custom page layout looking for 'registered tags' in the default master page.. failing to bind.
Precisely, Actual custom masterpage is not binded to the custom page layout due to the late binding.

Solution:
Right click on the actual master page in the SPD and select 'set as custom master page'.

Tabbed Pages with multiple zones

2008-08-03T14:31:00.000-07:00

Peter Allen explained about the tabs on the page here.
I am gonna extend this part to include multiple webpart zones on the page.
Step1: Coding the Tabbed page.
Open a notepad and paste the below code. Save the file as 'TabbedPage.aspx'.

<%@ Page Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~masterurl/default.master" inherits="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPartPage, Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" meta:progid="SharePoint.WebPartPage.Document" %>
<%@ Register tagprefix="WebPartPages" namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages" assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>
<asp:Content runat="server" ContentPlaceHolderID="PlaceHolderAdditionalPageHead">

<script type="text/javascript">
if(typeof jQuery=="undefined")
{
var jQPath="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/";
document.write("<script src='",jQPath,"jquery.min.js' type='text/javascript'><\/script>");}
</script>

<style>#tabs ul.tabNavigation{ margin: 0; padding: 0; list-style: none; height: 20px; /* Push the tabs 1px down to hide the top-border of the tabbedWindow */ position: relative; top: 1px; border-bottom: #998b7d 1px solid;}#tabs ul.tabNavigation li{ float: left; padding: 0; margin: 0 5px 0 0; background: none;}#tabs ul.tabNavigation a{ background-color: #fff; border: 1px solid #bbb; display: block; padding: 4px 0 1px; text-decoration:none}#tabs ul.tabNavigation a.selected{ font-weight: bolder; background-color: #C0C0C0; border-bottom: #bbb 1px solid;}#tabs ul.tabNavigation a span{ padding: 0 10px;}#tabs div.tabbedWindow{
background-color: #fff;
}#tabs ul.tabNavigation a:hover{ background-color: #F0F0F0 ;}
</style><script type="text/javascript">

$(function () { var tabContainers = $('div#tabs > .tabbedWindow'); tabContainers.hide().filter('#tab-1').show(); $('div#tabs ul.tabNavigation a').click(function () { tabContainers.hide(); tabContainers.filter(this.hash).show(); $('div#tabs ul.tabNavigation a').removeClass('ms-topnavselected selected'); $(this).addClass('ms-topnavselected selected'); return false; }).filter('#tab-1').click(); }); </script>
</asp:Content>

<asp:Content runat="server" ContentPlaceHolderID="PlaceHolderMain">

<table cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="100%">
<tr>
<td id="_invisibleIfEmpty" name="_invisibleIfEmpty" colspan="3" valign="top" width="100%">
<WebPartPages:WebPartZone runat="server" Title="loc:Header" ID="Header" FrameType="TitleBarOnly">
<ZoneTemplate>
</ZoneTemplate></WebPartPages:WebPartZone> </td> </tr>

<tr> <td id="_invisibleIfEmpty" name="_invisibleIfEmpty" colspan="3" valign="top" width="100%"> <WebPartPages:WebPartZone runat="server" Title="loc:Tab" ID="Tab"><ZoneTemplate></ZoneTemplate></WebPartPages:WebPartZone> </td> </tr> <tr> <td id="_invisibleIfEmpty" name="_invisibleIfEmpty" valign="top" height="100%">
<div id="tabs"> <div class="tabbedWindow" id="tab-1"><WebPartPages:WebPartZone id="ID1" runat="server" title="Zone Tab 1"><ZoneTemplate></ZoneTemplate></WebPartPages:WebPartZone> </div>
<div class="tabbedWindow" id="tab-2"><WebPartPages:WebPartZone id="ID2" runat="server" title="Zone Tab 2"><ZoneTemplate></ZoneTemplate></WebPartPages:WebPartZone> </div> <div class="tabbedWindow" id="tab-3"><WebPartPages:WebPartZone id="ID3" runat="server" title="Zone Tab 3"><ZoneTemplate></ZoneTemplate></WebPartPages:WebPartZone> </div>
<div class="tabbedWindow" id="tab-4"><WebPartPages:WebPartZone id="ID4" runat="server" title="Zone Tab 4"><ZoneTemplate></ZoneTemplate></WebPartPages:WebPartZone> </div>
<div class="tabbedWindow" id="tab-5"><WebPartPages:WebPartZone id="ID5" runat="server" title="Zone Tab 5"><ZoneTemplate></ZoneTemplate></WebPartPages:WebPartZone> </div>

<div class="tabbedWindow" id="tab-6"><WebPartPages:WebPartZone id="ID6" runat="server" title="Zone Tab 6"><ZoneTemplate></ZoneTemplate></WebPartPages:WebPartZone> </div> <div class="tabbedWindow" id="tab-7"><WebPartPages:WebPartZone id="ID7" runat="server" title="Zone Tab 7"><ZoneTemplate></ZoneTemplate></WebPartPages:WebPartZone> </div>
<div class="tabbedWindow" id="tab-8"><WebPartPages:WebPartZone id="ID8" runat="server" title="Zone Tab 8"><ZoneTemplate></ZoneTemplate></WebPartPages:WebPartZone> </div>
<div class="tabbedWindow" id="tab-9"><WebPartPages:WebPartZone id="ID9" runat="server" title="Zone Tab 9"><ZoneTemplate></ZoneTemplate></WebPartPages:WebPartZone> </div>
<div class="waste"></div> </div>
</td>

<td id="_invisibleIfEmpty" name="_invisibleIfEmpty" valign="top" height="100%">
<div id="tabs"> <div class="tabbedWindow" id="tab-1"><WebPartPages:WebPartZone id="ID10" runat="server" title="Zone Tab 10"><ZoneTemplate></ZoneTemplate></WebPartPages:WebPartZone> </div>
<div class="tabbedWindow" id="tab-2"><WebPartPages:WebPartZone id="ID11" runat="server" title="Zone Tab 11"><ZoneTemplate></ZoneTemplate></WebPartPages:WebPartZone> </div>
<div class="tabbedWindow" id="tab-3"><WebPartPages:WebPartZone id="ID12" runat="server" title="Zone Tab 12"><ZoneTemplate></ZoneTemplate></WebPartPages:WebPartZone> </div>
<div class="tabbedWindow" id="tab-4"><WebPartPages:WebPartZone id="ID13" runat="server" title="Zone Tab 13"><ZoneTemplate></ZoneTemplate></WebPartPages:WebPartZone> </div>
<div class="tabbedWindow" id="tab-5"><WebPartPages:WebPartZone id="ID14" runat="server" title="Zone Tab 14"><ZoneTemplate></ZoneTemplate></WebPartPages:WebPartZone> </div>
<div class="tabbedWindow" id="tab-6"><WebPartPages:WebPartZone id="ID15" runat="server" title="Zone Tab 15"><ZoneTemplate></ZoneTemplate></WebPartPages:WebPartZone> </div>
<div class="tabbedWindow" id="tab-7"><WebPartPages:WebPartZone id="ID16" runat="server" title="Zone Tab 16"><ZoneTemplate></ZoneTemplate></WebPartPages:WebPartZone> </div>
<div class="tabbedWindow" id="tab-8"><WebPartPages:WebPartZone id="ID17" runat="server" title="Zone Tab 17"><ZoneTemplate></ZoneTemplate></WebPartPages:WebPartZone> </div>
<div class="tabbedWindow" id="tab-9"><WebPartPages:WebPartZone id="ID18" runat="server" title="Zone Tab 18"><ZoneTemplate></ZoneTemplate></WebPartPages:WebPartZone> </div> </div></td>

<td id="_invisibleIfEmpty" name="_invisibleIfEmpty" valign="top" height="100%">
<div id="tabs"> <div class="tabbedWindow" id="tab-1"><WebPartPages:WebPartZone id="ID19" runat="server" title="Zone Tab 19"><ZoneTemplate></ZoneTemplate></WebPartPages:WebPartZone> </div>
<div class="tabbedWindow" id="tab-2"><WebPartPages:WebPartZone id="ID20" runat="server" title="Zone Tab 20"><ZoneTemplate></ZoneTemplate></WebPartPages:WebPartZone> </div>
<div class="tabbedWindow" id="tab-3"><WebPartPages:WebPartZone id="ID21" runat="server" title="Zone Tab 21"><ZoneTemplate></ZoneTemplate></WebPartPages:WebPartZone> </div><div class="tabbedWindow" id="tab-4"><WebPartPages:WebPartZone id="ID22" runat="server" title="Zone Tab 22"><ZoneTemplate></ZoneTemplate></WebPartPages:WebPartZone> </div>
<div class="tabbedWindow" id="tab-5"><WebPartPages:WebPartZone id="ID23" runat="server" title="Zone Tab 23"><ZoneTemplate></ZoneTemplate></WebPartPages:WebPartZone> </div>
<div class="tabbedWindow" id="tab-6"><WebPartPages:WebPartZone id="ID24" runat="server" title="Zone Tab 24"><ZoneTemplate></ZoneTemplate></WebPartPages:WebPartZone> </div>
<div class="tabbedWindow" id="tab-7"><WebPartPages:WebPartZone id="ID25" runat="server" title="Zone Tab 25"><ZoneTemplate></ZoneTemplate></WebPartPages:WebPartZone> </div>
<div class="tabbedWindow" id="tab-8"><WebPartPages:WebPartZone id="ID26" runat="server" title="Zone Tab 26"><ZoneTemplate></ZoneTemplate></WebPartPages:WebPartZone> </div>
<div class="tabbedWindow" id="tab-9"><WebPartPages:WebPartZone id="ID27" runat="server" title="Zone Tab 27"><ZoneTemplate></ZoneTemplate></WebPartPages:WebPartZone> </div>
</div></td>

</tr> <tr> <td id="_invisibleIfEmpty" name="_invisibleIfEmpty" colspan="3" valign="top" width="100%"> <WebPartPages:WebPartZone runat="server" Title="loc:Footer" ID="Footer" FrameType="TitleBarOnly"><ZoneTemplate></ZoneTemplate></WebPartPages:WebPartZone> </td> </tr> <tr>
</tr> <script language="javascript">if(typeof(MSOLayout_MakeInvisibleIfEmpty) == "function") {MSOLayout_MakeInvisibleIfEmpty();}</script></table></asp:Content>
<asp:Content runat="server" ContentPlaceHolderID="PlaceHolderPageTitle"> Site</asp:Content>

I embedded the parallel zones with the extra DIVs and seperated by HTML TD(Table Data) node. make sure that you follow the below standrds:

Every extra TD should have the name defined with a specific name.

<td id="_invisibleIfEmpty" name="_invisibleIfEmpty" valign="top" height="100%">

Every TD must have a DIV defined with a standard name "tabs", thats where the code gets the reference.
```
<div id="tabs">
```

Step2:Upload the aspx page to a doc lib.
Go to any document library and upload the dashboard.aspx page. After uploading the page, moify the page (site actions -> Edit Page).
Step3: Linking the tabs with the actual webpart zones.

Click on the 'tabs' zone's add webpart link and add a content editor webpart. Modify the CEWP Source Editor and paste the below code.

<!-- Code to hide Tab Page Help Link -->
<script type="text/javascript"> 
$(document).ready(function() {      
$('#TabPageHelp').hide();   });
</script>
<!-- Code to add Tabs -->
<div id="tabs">   
<ul class="tabNavigation ms-WPBody">       
<li><a href="#tab-1" class="selected ms-topnavselected"><span>Tab-1</span></a></li>        
<li><a href="#tab-2" ><span>Tab-2</span></a></li>        
<li><a href="#tab-3" ><span>Tab-3</span></a></li>        
<li><a href="#tab-4" ><span>Tab-4</span></a></li>        
<li><a href="#tab-5" ><span>Tab-5</span></a></li>        
<li><a href="#tab-6" ><span>Tab-6</span></a></li>        
<li><a href="#tab-7" ><span>Tab-7</span></a></li>        
<li><a href="#tab-8" ><span>Tab-8</span></a></li>        
<li><a href="#tab-9" ><span>Tab-9</span></a></li>     </ul>      
<div style="clear: both"></div></div>

Step4: adding webparts.
Now, when you click on the 'Tab1', you see the three zones with three parallel Table Data structure. By selecting the desired tab, add web parts to the zones.

Login popup prompted to enter the credentials again and again when accessing FQDN through Windows Vista

2008-07-24T16:05:00.000-07:00

Scenario:
Login popup is prompted recursively to enter the id pwd credentials again and again while opening a document located in the sharepoint area.

Reason:
This bug is nothing to do any thing with the 'Sharepoint'.
You will get prompted while accessing any office document.
By default, On a Windows Vista-based computer, you do not configure a proxy in Windows Internet Explorer and you use Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDav) to access a fully qualified domain names (FQDN) site.

In Windows Vista, Internet Explorer uses the Web Client service when you use Internet Explorer to access a WebDAV resource. The Web Client Service uses Windows HTTP Services (WinHTTP) to perform the network I/O to the remote host. WinHTTP sends user credentials only in response to requests that occur on a local intranet site.

WinHTTP does not check the security zone settings in Internet Explorer to determine whether a Web site is in a zone that lets credentials be sent automatically.If no proxy is configured, WinHTTP sends credentials only to local intranet sites.Note If the URL contains no period in the server’s name.

eg. the server is assumed to be on a local intranet site:
http://sharepoint/davshare.

If the URL contains periods, the server is assumed to be on the Internet. The periods indicate that you use an FQDN address. Therefore, no credentials are automatically sent to this server unless a proxy is configured and unless this server is indicated for proxy bypass.Note A server can be indicated for proxy bypass either through the bypass list or through the proxy configuration script.In this case, you are prompted to enter your credentials when the Web site asks for credentials. Even in this case, the security zone settings are ignored.

Fix:

Install Windows Vista Service Pack 1 or a later service pack.
Start -> Run -> regedit
Traverse to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > CurrentControlSet > Services > WebClient > Parameters
Right-click the 'Parameters' subkey, and choose New > Multi-String Value.
Type the name AuthForwardServerList.
Open the AuthForwardServerList value and type in the list of SharePoint server URL's that are trusted for your organization - one URL per line.
Start > Admin Tools> SERVICES -> Restart the WebClient service. Or reboot the PC.

Modifying the 'My Links' URL with the Sharepoint Deligate control

2008-06-11T10:06:00.000-07:00

Allright, fresh day and refreshing requirement.. a request from the client that they do not need a 'my site' previlege available to all the users in the company. But they remain would like to use the 'My Links' link after the welcome control on each page. They also wanted the 'My Profile' option remain there, so that the user information will be dipsplayed when searched on their name. No worries! there is a way!!

Disable 'my site' and enable 'personal features' & 'manage user profiles'

Go to the ssp personalization permissions page ( Sharepoint Central Admin -> ssp-> service provider -> User Profiles and My Sites ->Personalization services permissions)
Check the user name that you want to disable the 'my site' option. In this case all the users( NT Authority\Auth users)
Click on 'modify permissions' and un select the 'Personal site' right.
Thats it! Now, 'my site' link on all the pages is disabled for the 'NT Auth\Auth users'.
Check the 'Manage User Profiles' and 'Personal Features' rights. Manage user Profiles right will allow the user to have 'My Profile' . Personal Features right will allow the user to enjoy the 'my links' .

So far, we are done with disabling the 'my site' feature. Now lets look at the 'my links' and 'my profile' links. 'My Links' link is on every page. Fine! even the 'Add Links' link within the my links works very fine. But there is a bump on the 'modify links' link. You will get displayed with an as usual un detrmining confused sharepoint error : 'Un Expected Error'. To view the actual error, modify the web.config file located at the 'c:\intepub\wwwroot\wss\virtual dir\your web app port/web.config. modify the config file to set some boolean flags.. false to true! Do it only on Dev/QA servers. Enabling the below debugging option on production server could result in server's performance.

<configuration>
<SharePoint>
<SafeMode CallStack="true" />

</SharePoint>

<system.web>

  <customErrors mode="Off" />

   <compilation debug="true" />

 </system.web>

</configuration>

Just save the file. No IISRESET needed.
After the above changes the error you see is 'Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.MySiteMapProvider.get_Home()'

The above error occured because the out of the box 'modify links' points to http://mysitehost/_layouts/MyQuickLinks.aspx .
'my site host' in the above URL will point to your my site HOST URL configured for your server. If we look at the URL, the second part '_layouts/MyQuickLinks' is fine.

Even the modify links works if you replace the 'mysitehost' with any existing site name.
http://any existing site1/_layouts/MyQuickLinks.aspx.
So, now we confirmed that there is a problem with the http://mysitehost/. Okay, now open another IE and copy paste the 'http://mysitehost" and see.
URL is redirected to'http://webapp/_layouts/mysite.aspx'. The logic inside the mysite.aspx causes to create or navigate to 'http://mysitehost/personal/userid'. As we all know, this URL is a my site URL for the person 'user id' . In the first section of this article, we prohibited the 'my sites' according to the client's requirement.

So, all we need to do is modify the 'modify links' URL within the 'my links' link.

Now, lets analyze the 'my links' link existing on the page.
How this control is brought to every page? Ans: Masterpage.
Lets look open the master page in the sharepoint designer in a split mode. I love this mode, as it allows me to highlight the code for a corresponding control in the design mode.
Lets go a head and click on the 'my links' link to highlight the code.
The 'My Links' code shows:

<td class="ms-globallinks">     <SharePoint:DelegateControl ControlId="GlobalSiteLink2" Scope="Farm" runat="server"/></td>

Now, we are confirmed that, My Links is a delegate control with a control Id: GlobalSiteLink2.
And we also know that, delegates are usually regestered in the sharepoint environment by including them in the 'elements.xml' file of a feature. So, if we can re write the delegate with the logic that modifies the URL of the 'modify links' we are set!

make up for the changes:

'My site' is a feature, thats added to sharepoint and available at the "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\FEATURES\MySite".
If you navigate to the above file system, you will see two XML files. 'Feature.XML' and 'MySiteFeatureElements.xml'.

Open the 'MySiteFeatureElements.XML' to see the tag:

<Control Id="GlobalSiteLink2" Sequence="100" ControlSrc="~/_controltemplates/mylinks.ascx"/>

All we need to do is modify the 'mylinks.ascx' to include the new logic or write a brand new '.ascx' and place in the control templates folder available at the 'C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\CONTROLTEMPLATES'.
All we need to do is replace the '
```
<spswc:mylinksmenucontrol id="MyLinksMenu" runat="server">' with <spswc:<em>yourclassfilename</em> id="MyLinksMenu" runat="server" />
```
So lets start writing the actual class and go step by step!

Actual Fix:

Step 1: Create the class to include the logic for the modify links URL.

Open Visual Studio 2005 -> File -> New -> Project -> class library -> Name it as 'ModifyLink'

Add the following code inside the class file

using System;
using System.Text;
using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using Microsoft.SharePoint;
using Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls;
using Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.WebControls;
namespace ModifyLink{
public class ExtendedModifyLinks : MyLinksMenuControl
{  
protected override ArrayList LoadMenuItems()  
{     
    ArrayList myArray = base.LoadMenuItems();
    MenuItemTemplate myMenu = (MenuItemTemplate)(myArray [myArray .Count - 1]);
     myMenu.ClientOnClickNavigateUrl = SPContext.Current.Site.Url + "/_layouts/MyQuickLinks.aspx";     
myMenu.ClientOnClickScript = "window.location='" + SPContext.Current.Site.Url + "/_layouts/MyQuickLinks.aspx'";
            myArray .RemoveAt(myArray .Count - 1);  
    myMenu.Add(myArray );
            return myMenu;
  }
}
}

In the above code, we copied the last link within the 'my links' link and modified it to use a new URL. Once the duplicated array item is ready, we replaced that with the exisiting Menu item in the Array.
Strong name the project and Build. Copy the oupt put dll to 'GAC' and 'C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\80\bin' folder.
iisreset.

Step 2: Create the custom '.ascx' delegate control

Go to "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\CONTROLTEMPLATES" folder.

Copy the "MyLinks.ascx" and paste in the same folder. Rename the "Copy of MyLinks.ascx" to 'ModifiedMyLinksControl.ascx'

Modify the ascx to use the above class assembly dll.
Replace the below line:

<%@ Register Tagprefix="SPSWC" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.WebControls" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>

with

<%@ Register Tagprefix="SPSWC" Namespace="YourControlClassNamespace" Assembly="YourControlClassAssemblyName, Version=<version>, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=yourToken<keyToken>" %>

In my case, it is:


<%@ Register Tagprefix="SPSWC" Namespace="ModifyLink" Assembly="ModifyLink, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken="123rrdfert423"%>

Also, replace the below line

  <SPSWC:MyLinksMenuControl id="MyLinksMenu" runat="server" />




With
<SPSWC:YourControlClassName id="MyLinksMenu" runat="server" />






In my case, it is:
<SPSWC:ExtendedModifyLinks id="MyLinksMenu" runat="server" />

Step 3: Writing the feature:
Go to the My site feature in the Features folder:
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\FEATURES\MySite
Backup the existing xml files(copy the two existing xml files: feature.xml and MySiteFeatureElements.xml and paste in the same folder)
Do not touch the feature.xml
Modify the 'MySiteFeatureElements.xml' file to:
<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/;
<Control Id="GlobalSiteLink1" Sequence="100" ControlSrc="~/_controltemplates/mysitelink.ascx" />
<Control Id="GlobalSiteLink2" Sequence="100" ControlSrc="~/_controltemplates/ModifiedMyLinksControl.ascx"/>
<Control Id="ProfileRedirection" Sequence="100" ControlSrc="~/_controltemplates/mysiteredirection.ascx"/>
</Elements>
Save the 'MySiteFeatureElements.xml' .
install the Feature to a server:
STSADM -o installfeature -filename MySite\feature.xml
If you have 'my site' feature already installed on the server,
you can do a -force to overwrite the site feature.
STSADM -o installfeature -filename MySite\feature.xml -force

for some reason, the -force did not work for me. So I un istalled the feature and re installed.
to un install: STSADM -o uninstallfeature -filename MySite\feature.xml
As this 'my site' feature is scoped as 'farm' level, need not to activate at a site collection level.
If you think, changing the my site feature directly causes a problem, you can create a new feature( add a new folder inside the 'features' folder and copy paste the 'feature.xml' and elements.xml')
Now the 'modify links' link will target to a new location.

The trial period for this product has expired errror while enabling the publishing feature

2008-04-21T12:38:00.000-07:00

OPtion1:

If you install MOSS 2007 on a Domain Controller, using publishing feature will give you the error: "The trial period for this product has expired."

You need to install this patch to fix the problem (link will start the download):
http://download.microsoft.com/download/b/1/a/b1a6dceb-92a3-4808-8dac-b4e40c90ce00/StandaloneDCWorkaround.msi

After instllaing patch, reset IIS and then run sharepoint wizard.

Some times, after entering the MOSS Enterprise key -> iisreset and even rebooted will give the adverse coz, when you setup a basic install, Central Admin app pool will run as Network Service instead of farm account. Network Service do not have the capabilities to license the product.

Fix: Change the app pool, right click and recycle the app pool.

Option 2:

Due to McAfee Antivirus. No Doubt, McAfee and Micosoft Sharepoint Server 2007 is a perfect combination. But some times, If you have installed McAfee antivirus, the auto update will prompt you to install some updates on the MOSS Box, like the McAfee poralshield update. This portal shield update is a Hotfix that is supposed to set the Sharepoint box with some extra security. Some times you endup installing this update in a failure or you may click 'cancel' on the update install accidentally . The McAfee Portal Shield will fail due to various reasons internally also. Because the installation of the hotfix failed, it tries to set the bug to invalidate the key.

Fix: Install the McAfee updates properly. If you can not install successfully, make sure that the perticular update is removed successfully :)

Access to a sharepoint publishing site

2008-03-27T11:55:00.000-07:00

Access Permissions to a sharepoint publiching site are different from the Team site.

Irrespective of whatever site access persmissions given to a publishing site, user can not see the pages until he/she are given at least 'read' permission to the 'masterpage' gallery.

So, even a full control user to the whole site, if not added to the 'master page' gallery, gets access denied error.

Adding a user to the master page gallery:
Site Actions -> Manage Content and Structure -> mouse hover on the masterpage gallery -> context menu -> Edit -> Properties -> Permissions for this gallery -> New.

If the user is a visitor, allow read permissions on the masterpage gallery.
IF the user can create the publishing pages, allow the 'Designer' access.
If the user can delete the gallery items, allow full control.

Can not create page from the list controls

2008-03-10T13:21:00.000-07:00

Deployment of content types via feature is bit tricky. Publishing content types for WCM are different in their way. They are special coz lots of publishing elements, such as "Pages" doc lib and page layouts.
When I deployed the content types using the features, I was redirected to "UploadPage.aspx" page, not to "CreatePage.aspx".Coz, I did not mention the "CreatePage.aspx" template pages explicitly. So, you loose the create page functionality when invoked from the list tool bar menu. Any how, CreatePage.aspx will work if created from the 'Actions' menu.
Below is the code to add the reference to "CreatePage.aspx" template explicitly :

<ContentType
        ID="0x010100C568DB52D9D0A14D9B2FDCC96666E9F2007948130EC3DB064584E219954237AF3900<GUID>"        Name="my Publishing Content Type"        Group="my Publishing Content Type"        Description="Content Type inherited from Publishing Page"        > 
      <FieldRefs>           
<FieldRef ID="{<GUID>}" DisplayName="Title" Name="Title" Sealed="TRUE" />
           <FieldRef ID="{<GUID>}" DisplayName="Description" Name="Comments" />       
</FieldRefs>       
<DocumentTemplate TargetName ="/_layouts/CreatePage.aspx"/>

</ContentType>

If you would like to enable this content type to be available only for the specified doc libraries/lists, add the below:

<ContentTypeBinding    
ContentTypeId="LIST TO ENABLE " ListUrl="URL"
/>

This Page has been modified since you opened it. You must open the page again

2008-03-10T12:19:00.000-07:00

You get the error, when you place custom .aspx pages in the "Pages" Doc Library of a publishing site.
MOSS Publishing feature has special meaning for "Pages" doc lib. If you intend to change it from the out of the box by writting a code in the .aspx pages in the "Pages" doc lib. Even if you place a simple Content Editor Webpart, it tries to change the "Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.PublishingLayoutPage" name space to "Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.PublishingLayoutPage". The error message says this change in a brief!

To avoid this, follow the workarounds specified below.
If you are confused or naive to Sharepoint Designer, simply copy the .aspx custom developed pages from the "Pages" doc lib to the area directly under the site folder. Good Luck!

While trying to edit the pages created in the publishing sites, you get this error.
When you use publishing in Sharepoint, you have a pages library with pages that have a page layout. These page layouts need to inherit from Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.PublishingLayoutPage and not from Microsoft.Sharepoint.Pages.WebpartPages.
You need to insert the pages in the pages library with a Page Layout.

The generic ONET.XML looks like this:

" Module Path="" Url="$Resources:cmscore,List_Pages_UrlName;" Name="DefaultBlank
File Url="default.aspx" Level="Approved" Type="GhostableInLibrary
Property Name="Title" Value="Default
Property Name="ContentType" Value="$Resources:cmscore,contenttype"

You have to add a property to the page you are adding. That property is called ‘PublishingPageLayout’ and should have the page layout you want to use as the value.
The page layout that you want to use should inherit from Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.PublishingLayoutPage, and most reside in the masterpages gallery of your site collection.

ONET.XML, after modifying:

"
Module Path="" Url="$Resources:cmscore,List_Pages_UrlName;" Name="DefaultBlank
File Url="default.aspx" Level="Approved" Type="GhostableInLibrary

Property Name="PublishingPageLayout" Value="~SiteCollection/_catalogs/masterpage/WelcomeLinks.aspx, ~SiteCollection/_catalogs/masterpage/Contact.aspx
Property Name="ContentType" Value="$Resources:cmscore,contenttype_pagelayout_name;">

"

If you have the page display problem after installing SP1, follow the instructions below:

Replace

Page language="C#" Inherits="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.PublishingLayoutPage, Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing,Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral,PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" metarogid="SharePoint.WebPartPage.Document" meta:webpartpageexpansion="full"
with

Page language="C#" Inherits="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.TemplateRedirectionPage, Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing, Version=12.0.0.0,Culture=neutral,PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" metarogid="SharePoint.WebPartPage.Document" meta:webpartpageexpansion="full"

Create a site template from a publishing site

2008-03-05T12:59:00.000-08:00

Publishing sites never allow you to save the site as template to be used in the sub site creation.
to allow this, you need to switch the publishing feature off -> save the teplate -> swtch on oagain!

or else you can append the following URL to force the publishing site to get the site template property.

http://your publishing site name/_Layouts/AreaTemplateSettings.aspx.

Some times the templates created by following the above logic will go weird! Even if you save the template from SharePoint Designer it will go wild and do strange things!
Then you should create site definitions (..\web server extensions\12\template\SiteTemplates) .

Modifying the Search results URL in sharepoint 2007 searchresults.aspx

2008-02-02T16:45:00.000-08:00

How to remove something (the port) from the URL as returned in the search results (searchresults.aspx):

Starting with the Infrastructure update, the following behavior can be encountered when searching for people:
The port (usually 80) is appended to the URL of the location for each result, resulting in error for all the internet facing personal sites.
For example, imagine you published your my site location in Alternate Access Mappings at : http://mysites.mydomain.com to be accessed from the intranet and https://mysites.mydomain.com to be accessed from the internet.

When you are searching for a user when logged on from the internet side of things, you will receive the results pointing to https://mysite.mydomain.com:80/Person.aspx?GUID... which will throw an error upon accessing (page not found).

If you want to overcome the issue (eg, you are looking for a quick fix) here's what you can do:

Go to your search center with tabs and search for something, just to get to the people results page.
Edit the page and modify the People Search Core Results web-part.
Click on the XSL Editor button to get to the XSL style sheet applied to the resultset.
The URL for each result is under the following section:

<!-- This template is called for each result -->

<xsl:template match="All_Results/Result">
<xsl:variable name="id" select="id"/>
.....
here ,

replace <xsl:variable name ="url" select ="url"/> 
line with:


<xsl:variable name ="temp" select ="url"/> 
<!-- We put the url value from the resultset in temp variable -->
            
<xsl:variable name="url"> 
<!-- This will be the value used in the xsl from now on in this section as $url -->
            
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="contains($temp,':80')">  
<!--We check temp variable  for the occurrences of string :80-->
<xsl:value-of select ="concat(substring-before($temp,':80'),substring-after($temp,':80'))"/>

<!--We remove from temp variable  the occurrences of string :80-->
</xsl:when>

<xsl:otherwise>
<xsl:value-of select ="$temp"/> 
<!--If we did not find the :80 we will retain the default value (url) as defined above-->

</xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
</xsl:variable>

....

So from now on, wherever we will use $url we will have the translated version of the url returned in the resultset
eg.  for https://mysite.mydomain.com:80/person.aspx?GUID....... the result would be https://mysite.mydomain.com/Person.aspx?GUID.......

Of course you will also need to play with the Search High Confidence Results web Part to Edit it  accordingly.
The place where you need to replace the url is :

<xsl:template match="All_Results/HighConfidenceResults/Result">
<xsl:if test="$DisplayHC = 'True' and $IsFirstPage = 'True'" >
<xsl:variable name="prefix">IMNRC('</xsl:variable>
<xsl:variable name="suffix">')
</xsl:variable>
 <xsl:variable name="url" select="url"/>
<xsl:variable name="id" select="id"/>

replace <xsl:variable name ="url" select ="url"/> line as above

Here are some additional references on how to edit, and tune the search  results to fit your company needs:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms584121.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms256069(VS.85).aspx

Scaling SharePoint 2007 Storage Architecture in a brief!

2008-01-07T19:17:00.000-08:00

Well.. Happy anniversary to Sharepoint 2007!

Another day and another thought! Time to discuss the gotchas for the administrators!!
Great challenge to any administrator is to Plan the available resources such that the resources are used for optimum solutions and overhead! And I am not an exceptional. So lets walk through the strategies that turns the effective planning in the reality!!

Sharepoint and content database

All the bulk data in all the site collections that comprise the portal instance is stored in the SharePoint Content databases. So SharePoint content databases grow very rapidly when used in file share replacement/document imaging system scenarios. This gives the headsup to consider the growth and overhead factors when determining how much content will eventually be stored in a given content database. You must be able to ensure that one site collection cannot use so many resources that other site collections can no longer function.

Windows SharePoint Services allows you to specify quota for site collections, so that you can manage your site and server resources. When you are planning the taxonomy and information architecture of your sites, a good amount of effort and thought should be put into Site Quotas.

Site Quotas are a key component for SharePoint Administrators to be able to properly manage and administer data restrictions on your site collections. SharePoint stores site content within a SQL Server database. Therefore, if you want to optimize SharePoint storage architecture, you have to focus on SQL Server. fortunately, Microsoft provides several Performance Monitors you can use with SQL Server. Great!
The content/data in the Recycle Bin is also included in the Quota space (it’s part of the site).

Site Collection Quotas and Quota templates are managed in Central Administration Microsoft suggests that the optimal maximum content database size should be 50GB. They alsorecommend that for most SharePoint implementations, the solution should not include any contentdatabases larger than 100GB. This is commonly referred to as the “100GB content database sizelimitation”. In fact, this is not a true limitation but rather a recommendation. SQL Server databases have beenscaling far beyond 100GB for years now.

Practically speaking, the recommendation is based primarilyon two significant factors:

1. Service Level Agreement (SLA) requirements for a given organization may dictate that backupoperations for the SharePoint databases must be executable in a limited amount of time. Thesize of the content databases will have a direct impact on how long it takes to execute thatbackup.

2. The storage subsystem must be robust enough to handle the disk I/O requirements of theSharePoint solution that it serves.

As long as a given organization is able to mitigate these two considerations, then the contentdatabases can be allowed to grow. Real world implementations have seen successful SharePointdeployments that have implemented database sizes of 100GB, 150GB, 200GB, 250GB, 300GB,350GB and 400GB. In order to mitigate the SLA requirements, a solution might employ a high speed disk-to-disk backupsolution, database mirroring, or database log shipping to a disaster recovery site.

Some tips and tricks to mitigate:

1. Add tempdb(space for the intermediate data) data files such that the number of data files equals the number of CPU corespresent in the SQL Server machine. Each data file (primary .mdf and additional .ndf(s)) shouldbe equal in size.
The size of each data file can be calculated using this formula:

[MAX DBSIZE (KB)] X [.25] / [# CORES] = DATA FILE SIZE (KB)

2. once the raw file storage quantities are determined, the following formula may be used to estimate databaseoverhead:

Database Overhead Formula:
Low: 1.2 * [Raw Storage Size] = ContentDB Size
High: 1.5 * [Raw Storage Size] = ContentDB Size

3. Use the following formula to calculate how much disk space needed for the search database:

GB of disk space required = Total_Content_Size (in GB) x File_Size_Modifier x 4
where File_Size_Modifier is a number in the following range, based on the average size of the files inyour corpus:

• 1.0 if your content consists of very small files (average file size = 1KB).
• 0.12 if your content consists of moderate files (average file size = 10KB).
• 0.05 if your content consists of large files (average file size 100KB or larger)

4. Place the content database file(s) on RAID 10 logical unit(s) if at all possible.

5. Place the search database log file on its own logical unit.

Some SQL gotchas:

Move tempdb
After executing this script and restarting SQL Server, the tempdb data and log files willbe initialized in the new location.

USE master
GO
ALTER DATABASE tempdb MODIFY FILE (NAME = tempdev, FILENAME = ‘[New data folderpath]\tempdb.mdf')
GO
ALTER DATABASE tempdb MODIFY FILE (NAME = templog, FILENAME = ‘[New log folderpath]\templog.ldf')
GO
(Don't forget to Restart SQL Server)

while trying to activate the 'publishing infrastructure feature'. Access denied error.

2007-12-16T21:58:00.000-08:00

Web app's application pool needs to be set to the sharepoint central admin admin pool.

Locate the Web Site in IIS. ->Properties -> home directory -> change the application pool to the central admin's application pool -> iisreset -> Publishing feature activation on the website -> switch back the web site's app pool to original ->iisreset.

Publishing site not showing all the site definitions/site templates

2007-12-11T08:53:00.000-08:00

Problem:

While trying to create a sub site under a publishing top level site, you will see only "Publishing site with workflow" site definition in the available templates. You can not see any other site definitions like team site and document work space.

Fix:

Site Actions -> Site Settings -> under look and feel -> Page layouts and site templates -> select the templates that you want to be available for the sub site creation.

View all site content shows empty lists and libraries.

2007-12-01T13:12:00.000-08:00

Problem: When you click on the 'View All site Content' link, it shows empty lists.
Fix: Go to the site features and activate the 'Team Collaboration Lists' feature.

People and Groups bulk email issue

2007-11-03T20:10:00.000-07:00

Problem:
If you have more than 60 users in a sharepoint group, while trying to e-mail to all the users nothing happens. Unlike the normal lists, group views do not have the 'edit view' to edit the item limit.
Reason:
When you click on 'Action-> email URL is formed like 'mail to: onemail; twomail;.......'
As you know, IE has a limitation to process 2048 characters. So if you select more than 60 users, it will get jammed.
Fix:
If it is okay to change the item limit follow this:

Go to the groups page(People.aspx)
Settings -> list settings
click on the desired view under the 'Views' section
In the item limit area, limit the items you want to.

For any reason, if you do not wish to change the item limit follow this:
This procedure basically copies all the email ids to a clip board, that you can paste manually into the notes/outlook.

Locate the 'People.aspx' page and open.
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS

Locate the code block for the function 'function BtnEmailClick(viewId)' and replace with the following code.

function BtnEmailClick(viewId)
{
    var emails = GetSelectedUsers(viewId, "email", ";"); 
if (emails.length == 0) 
{     
alert(noUserEmailSelectedMsg);     
return false; 
} 
emails = escapeProperly(emails); 
emails = unescape(emails);
    // get rid of the anchor mailto: 
emails = emails.replace(emails.substring(emails.indexOf('<'), emails.indexOf('>', emails.indexOf('<')) + 1), "");
// Post the string to the clipboard if IE. 
if (ClipBoard(emails)) 
{     
alert( countNeedles(";", emails) + " email addresses have been copied to your clipboard.");
    } 
return false;
}

//Copying mails to the clipboard
function ClipBoard(s)
{
    if (!document.all)      
return false;
    // This is for IE only 
var holdtext = document.getElementById('holdtext');
holdtext.innerText = s;
var Copied = holdtext.createTextRange();
Copied.execCommand("Copy"); 
return true; 
}

//Counting the number of mail ids to confirm the user
function countNeedles(needle, haystack)
{  
count = 1; 
pos = haystack.indexOf(needle); 
while ( pos != -1 ) 
{     
count++;     
pos = haystack.indexOf(needle, pos+1); 
}    return count;
}

Any where in the page, paste the following line. In my case, I pasted after the 'ms-quicklaunchheader' DIV tag.
```
<TEXTAREA ID="holdtext"></TEXTAREA>
```

No Web parts Found.. while adding the webparts

2007-10-20T12:30:00.000-07:00

Problem Definition:

After creating a '.stp' file out of a site, and adding this .stp template to a farm using stsadm, when you try to add webparts to the new site collection that has been created with the custom site template, you will get the error ''No Web parts Found.."

Fix:

You can manually copy the webparts from the tempalte site webpart gallery and paste into the destination webpart gallery. But web parts are not grouped in sections(Content Rollup, dashboard, mislaneous, all webparts etc)
You can also go to the new site webpart gallery and populate the webparts manually.
(Site Actions -> Site Settings -> Galleries -> Webpart Gallery -> New -> select the webpart you desire -> populate)
Run the following code using a console application if you wish to add the webparts only once. If you are running like this, then uncomment the line 'SPSite ProvisionedSite = new SPSite(provisionedSiteUrl);' and comment the line 'SPSite ProvisionedSite = SPContext.Current.Site;'

If you wish to have the webparts copied automatically, each time you create a site, then go for a feature and embed this code in the 'Feature_Acticated' method of the feature.

//code for copying webpart files from the template site to provisioned site

public static void CopyWebParts(string templateSiteUrl, string provisionedSiteUrl)

// Get the context of the template site

SPSite templateSite = new SPSite(templateSiteUrl);

// Access the Template site Webparts folder under _catalogs

SPFileCollection templateWebParts = templateSite.RootWeb.Folders["_catalogs"].SubFolders["wp"].Files;

// Below line is commented as this code is meant for automatic execution.Un comment this line, if you want to run this code as a console application.

//SPSite ProvisionedSite = new SPSite(provisionedSiteUrl);

// Load the properties of the existing file

// Get the current site context

SPSite ProvisionedSite = SPContext.Current.Site;

// Access the Provisioned site Webparts folder under _catalogs

SPFileCollection ProvisionedWebParts = ProvisionedSite.RootWeb.Folders["_catalogs"].SubFolders["wp"].Files;

foreach (SPFile templateWebPart in templateWebParts)

// Load the properties of the existing file

byte[] binaryData = templateWebPart.OpenBinary();

// Copy the file

SPFile copiedFile = ProvisionedWebParts.Add(templateWebPart.Name, binaryData, true);

copiedFile.Update();

// Update the properties of the copied file

copiedFile.Item["Group"] = templateWebPart.Item["Group"];

copiedFile.Item["Quick Add Groups"] = templateWebPart.Item["Quick Add Groups"];

copiedFile.Item.Update();

copiedFile.Update();

}
}

Note:Always activate features through the browser.
Do not activate this feature through command prompt stsadm.exe.
Coz, stsadm doesn’t know the current context of the site.

Login failed for user 'Domain Name\

2007-10-13T15:38:00.000-07:00

When you see the error ' Login failed for user 'Domain Name\<SharePoint Server Name>', follow the below command:

STSADM.EXE -o provisionservice -action start -servicetype “Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.ExcelServerSharedWebService, Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c”

Sharepoint server is too busy

2007-10-05T13:23:00.000-07:00

There are so many reasons for this issues, lets go over all the possible reasons and fixes.

Reason 1: Not enough CPU speed.
Fix: Add more CPUs to the existing one and upgrade the speed to at least 4 Ghz.

Reason 2:
Make sure that the server is NOTrunning in the debug mode. Usually dev and QA servers are enabled with debug mode for interactive trouble shooting. All production servers are supposed to run in the 'non-debug' mode. If you are running in the debug mode, all the intermediate variables and values are cached for the debugging purpose. If you have a single variable for a code block, never think that it is gonna be a single variable on the server. A copy of the variable gets created each time a user access the code. FIX:
Disabling the debug mode for all the asp.net applicationsGo to the machine.config located at the location:C:\Microsoft.NET\Framework\%VersionNumber%\CONFIG\Your compilation mode should look like this:

<compilation debug="false"/>

Disabling the debug mode for only the sharepoint C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\80 and open the web.config(This path is for the default 80 port. If your application is running on other ports do this for all the other ports)Your compilation mode should look like this:

<compilation batch="false" debug="false">

Reason 3: Sharepoint master page or any custom page accessing asp code. Eg, IFrame rendering .asp file. This problem occurs if you have sp1 on 2003 server and do not have sp2.
Microsoft included this hot fix in the sp2.

Fix: Microsoft has hot fix to correct this problem.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/916984

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/188352

Reason 4: Full Crawl tries to authenticate the users.
Fix:

On the application server,

This is for the general sharepoint server slow.
start - > Run -> regedit -> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\web server extensions\12\WSS
right click on the WSS -> permissions -> Add user/group -> Everyone -> Read access
This is for the Full Crawl/Incremental crawl causing server slow
start - > Run -> regedit -> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\web server extensions\12\Search
right click on the Search -> permissions -> Add user/group -> Everyone -> Read access

Reason 5:
Network Traffic increase.

Fix:

If your website keeps growing and growing, eventually you will hit the error 500-13, that your server is too busy to handle the requests. What do you do?

First, check your main settings in IIS. Make sure you look in the PERFORMANCE tab. Set your site to more than 100,000 hits/day which is probably true if you are running into this error. Remember that hits includes every file you send out - including graphics - and is much larger than your page view count.

On that same page, be sure to turn off bandwidth throttling and process throttling.

Next, on your main entry in your IIS manager, right click to get properties. Go into Server Extensions - Settings. Depending on your use of include files and images, you may want to increase the cache sizes there.

To monitor the issue, open the performance monitor in your control panel. Right click on the lower right area to add a new item to monitor. You should add in -

ASP - requests queued
ASP - requests executing
ASP - script engines cached
Processor - % processor time
Memory - available bytes

I highly recommend using XCompress which is an ASP compressor, helping to ensure that you use as little bandwidth as possible in sending your ASP files out to end users.

If you want to take your life into your own hands, you can also try setting the cache settings manually. You need to launch a CMD prompt first. Head into inetpub\adminscripts. Then run commands:

adsutil set w3svc/1/AspQueueTimeout 30
adsutil set w3svc/1/ServerListenBackLog 500
adsutil set w3svc/1/MaxEndPointConnections 500

Those will help reduce your timeout from its unlimited initial state, and set higher limits on the backlog and max connections values. Be sure to backup before trying this!

In addition, you can go back into the IIS manager and right click for the properties. Go into Home Directory then Configuration. You get a special tab in here for Process Options that is not available on a single-website basis. Set the cache values up high enough based on the performance monitor entries.

Reason 6:
Script errors on the pages running under the server. To fix this issue, look for all the script errors by the 'err' object to diagnose. Also look whether they are leaving any un allocated objects in the stack.

cannot find Excel Web Access webpart in the gallery

2007-09-04T07:03:00.000-07:00

Situation:

While trying to drag drop the webparts, can not find the 'Excel web access' webpart in the list.

Fix:

copy paste the following code into a note pad and name it as 'ExcelWebAcces.webpart'.
upload the 'ExcelWebAcces.webpart' file into the 'webpart gallery (Site Actions -> Site Settings -> webparts)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>

<WebPart xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebPart/v2">

<Assembly>Microsoft.Office.Excel.WebUI, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c</Assembly>

<TypeName>Microsoft.Office.Excel.WebUI.ExcelWebRenderer</TypeName>

<Title>Excel Web Access</Title>

<Description>Use the Excel Web Access to interact with an Excel workbook as a Web page.</Description>

<FrameType>TitleBarOnly</FrameType>

<PartImageSmall>/_layouts/images/ewr023.gif</PartImageSmall>

<PartImageLarge>/_layouts/images/ewr023.gif</PartImageLarge>

</WebPart>

My Links webpart display on a page

2007-07-29T12:40:00.000-07:00

If you want to display 'My Links' webpart on any sharepoint page, there are two ways to do.

1. My Links webpart with all the tool bar links:

Go to the webpart library ( Site Actions -> site settings -> galleries -> Web Parts )
New
Check for the 'Quick Links Micro view' webpart and 'Populate gallery)
Now, My Links web part is ready in the webpart browser.

2. My Links web part without any tool bars.

Go to the actual 'My Links' webpart available on the 'Profile' page.
context menu -> Export
Save the ".dwp" file on your local disk.
Go to the page, you wanna display the webpart -> Site Actions -> Edit Page -> Add webpart -> Import
Select the '.dwp' file that you just saved on the disk.

How to change the Title URL of the 'My Links' webpart

'My Links' webpart title is formed dynamically. Even though you change the URL from the properties/dwp file's detail link, page refresh will get the default My Links URL again.
Structure of the My Links title URL:
"Personal site provider URL"/_layouts/MyQuickLinks.aspx

So, if you wanna change the URL of the title, you need to change the "Personal site Provider URL", whcih can be set on the SSP settings page(Sharepoint Central Admin -> SSP -> My Site Settings -> Personal site provider)

DVD player is skipping and making noise

2007-07-27T22:00:00.000-07:00

Issue:

last week I got a DVD from Netflix which was completely cracked and pasted with a plaseter to fool the customers. Without the knowledge, I inserted into my DELL INSPIRON machine. After that moment, whatever DVD I try to play on my lappy, it keeps skipping the voice/picture and made me irk!!

Solution:

1. Right click on My Computer
2. Select Properties
3. Click on Hardware
4. Click on Device Manager
5. Double click on IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers
6. Double click on Primary channel
7. Click Advanced Settings and check it says DMA if available and is set to Ultra DMA, mode 5.
8. Do the same for the secondary channel -- it should be Ultra DMA, mode 2.

If your PC doesn't have DMA enabled, the easiest way to re-enable it is to remove the channel and reboot. Windows will then automatically reinstall it and reset the counters that deactivated DMA in the first place.

To remove the channel:
Right click on the relevant channel in Device Manager (you know how to get there - follow steps 1 thru 5 above )
Click on uninstall
Reboot
When you have rebooted (and the drive and been recognised by Windows again), go back to Device Manager and change the setting to DMA if available.
Windows NT/2000 users reboot again. XP users, you're good to go.

BreakRoleInheritance throws Access is denied error.

2007-07-24T15:24:00.000-07:00

Error Details:
While performing list item updates programmatically, you try to elevate the permissions or trying to impersonate or Brake the role inheritance, you get the following error. You will not get this error if you are logged in as an admin. Only contributor users face this error.
Error in the log:
Access is denied. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070005 (E_ACCESSDENIED)) at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPGlobal.HandleUnauthorizedAccessException(UnauthorizedAccessException ex) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.SPRequest.UpdateRoleAssignment(String bstrUrl, Guid& pguidScopeId, Int32 lPrincipalID, Object& pvarArrIdRolesToAdd, Object& pvarArrIdRolesToRemove) at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPRoleAssignmentCollection.UpdateAssignment(Int32 principalId, SPRoleDefinitionBindingCollection bindings, Boolean addOnly) at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPRoleAssignmentCollection.Add(SPRoleAssignment roleAssignment) at MYDLL.MYDLLHandler.ItemAdded(SPItemEventProperties properties)

FIX:

Use "Allow unsafe updates=true" After each and every code line. You MUST use this statement before and after the "BreakRoleInheritance" line. Ofcrs Make it false only once, while leaving the whole code.
That should fix the issue, if you are still facing the problem, follow the below one by one. Any one of the solutions should fix your problem.

Believe me, I spent countless hours to get this simple solution.
Code the SPSite and SPWeb instances after the RunWithElevatedPrivileges(delegate() line. But initiate the context before the code line.
Always go with Ids instead of site or webs, if you are facing the problems even after this solution.

Guid MywebGuid = SPContext.Current.Web.ID;
Guid MysiteGuid = SPContext.Current.Site.ID;
//RunWithElevatedPrivileges(delegate() code block
SPSite MySite = new SPSite(MysiteGuid)
Keep in your mind that all the site context declarations/assignments (Guid MysiteGuid = SPContext.Current.Site.ID) should be made before the RunWithElevatedPrivileges(delegate() line. Coz, even though the user is elevated with the full control permissins using the RunWithElevatedPrivileges(delegate() line, if you declare/assign the values after the code line, while assigning the context values, control switches back to the contributor access.
But, where as if you declare/assign the values before the code line, context will be initiated as the contributor first and then enters in the code block as the full control user with the context carried over. So no issues.
Use IDs instead of ListItems.This makes sure, not to reuse an object that was created in the context of a non-administrative user
Guid listID = properties.ListId;
Guid listItemID = properties.ListItemId;
SPListItem listItem = web.Lists[listID].GetItemById(listItemID);
If this list is a document library, make sure you have the file checked-in before the "RunWithElevatedPrivileges" line or else check out the list item to the system account.
properties.ListItem.File.CheckIn()
In the case of Admin login, you were the admin and was going through the system checkout by default:
Also check on the application pool id being the same as the elevated.
Disable all the events being fired.

IE Developer Toolbar not working

2007-07-22T11:50:00.000-07:00

Situation:

After installing the IE dev tool bar while clicking on the 'select element by click' button, nothing happens.

Fix:

Tools -> Internet options -> Security Tab -> Local Intranet -> Custom Level -> Run ActiveX Control or PlugIn (Administrator Mode).
Tools -> Internet Options -> Programs -> Manage add-ons -> IE Developer Toolbar BHO -> Enable (requires browser restart).
Tools -> Internet Options -> Advanced -> Enable third party browser-extensions (requires browser restart)

If you still can not fix the problem, try it on any other usual page, eg. google.com. If works, then there is an issue with the specific page that you are trying to.

Some identified code blocks:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd%22&gt;

overflow:hidden

Enable drop dowm menu on a team site's top link bar

2007-07-06T16:07:00.000-07:00

By default, Sharepoint publising site's top link bar has the two level drop down menu that allows you to hide the sub menu items until the parent menu item gets mouse over.

But, the team site's top link bar doesn't have the functionality by default.

Here are the steps to achieve the dropdown menu functionality within a team site.

Locate the masterpage file for the page on which you wanna see the two level menu.
Usually it will be "default.master" unless some one has changed the masterpage.
open the default.master in the sharepoint Designer.
Open the site in the Sharepoint Designer and access th masterpage located at "/_catalog/masterpage/default.master" from the folder list.
If you do not have the sharepoint designer, then open the file directly from the following location: "C:\Program Files\Common Files \Microsoft Shared\Webserver Extensions\12\Template\Global\default.master.

Locate the "SiteMapDataSource" node in the default.master code

<asp:SiteMapDataSource .. >

and replace it with:

<asp:SiteMapDataSourceShowStartingNode="True"SiteMapProvider="SPSiteMapProvider"id="topSiteMap"runat="server" />

To get the dynamic menu loaed each time you access the top link,
locate the
```
< SharePoint.AspMenu  > 
```
and change the "StaticDisplayLevels" and "MaximumDynamicDisplayLevels" values to:

StaticDisplayLevels="2"
MaximumDynamicDisplayLevels="1"
If you wanna explore the sub menu to further levels, increase the MasimumDynamicDisplayLevels value to the value you desire. I guess, it is limited to 4.

Extending Stsadm.exe with Custom Commands using the ISPStsadmCommand Interface

2007-07-02T15:14:00.000-07:00

The configuration files that indicate to stsadm.exe which operations are available for execution are located in the 12 hive( C:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\12\CONFIG)
There 10 or more "stsadmcommands.customcommands.xml" xml configuration files located in the folder, where customcommands is arbitrary but must be unique. Through this naming convention for configuration files, stsadm.exe implements a pluggable architecture for declaring custom operations

The configuration file itself is a simple XML document with a <Commands/> root element containing one or more <Command/> sub-elements. These <Command/> sub-elements are where we declare custom operations and include two attributes name and class. As would be expected, the name attribute indicates the name of the operation to be executed by stsadm.exe. Note that the exact value of the name attribute will be specified by an administrator at runtime using the -o named parameter in order to execute the declared custom operation. The second attribute class specifies the class and .NET Assembly name where our classes that implement the ISPStsadmCommand interface live.

The .NET assembly containing our compiled custom operation(s) will be placed in the Global Assembly Cache (GAC) prior to runtime. This assembly contains one class for each custom stsadm.exe operation, and each of these classes must implement the ISPStsadmCommand interface. Each class that implements the ISPStsadmCommand interface is required to contain a GetHelpMessage method and a Run method. The GetHelpMessage method returns a string value containing help and usage information for the custom operation.

At runtime, the Run method will receive a StringDictionary parameter from stsadm.exe which consists of key/value pairs containing all named parameters, values and flags input from the WSS administrator. The Run method also takes an out type parameter which will be echoed back to the console window upon execution of the custom operation.

After writing a console application and placing the config info in the xml files, you can invoke the new command prompt.

How to create the Publishing pages programmatically into sharepoint

2007-07-02T14:18:00.000-07:00

MOSS 2007 shipped with a customizable STSADM command that you can add any custom commands by using IStsadmcommand interface.
Create a console application with the following logic, Add this command to the STSADM.

Link to add the custom STSADM command: http://sharepointsolutions.blogspot.com/2006/09/extending-stsadmexe-with-custom.html

public void FillPublishingWebWithPages (string publishingSiteCollection, int pagesToCreate)
{ 
SPSite siteCollection = null; 
SPWeb site = null; 
PublishingSite publishingSite = null; 
PublishingWeb publishingWeb = null; 
try { 
// get the PublishingWeb 
siteCollection = new SPSite(publishingSiteCollection);
site = siteCollection.RootWeb();
publishingSite = new PublishingSite(siteCollection);
publishingWeb = PublishingWeb.GetPublishingWeb(site);
// Article Page content type
SPContentTypeId articleContentTypeID = new SPContentTypeId("0x010100C568DB52D9D0A14D9B2FDCC96666E9F2007948130EC3DB064584E219954237AF3900242457EFB8B24247815D688C526CD44D");

// get the ArticleLeft.aspx Page Layout
 PageLayout[] layouts = publishingWeb.GetAvailablePageLayouts(articleContentTypeID);
PageLayout articlePageLayout = layouts[1];
 // create a temp name...
string pageName = DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyyMMdd-HHmmss");
// create the specified number of pages
for (int i = 0; i < pagesToCreate; i++) {
PublishingPage newPage = publishingWeb.GetPublishingPages().Add(string.Format("{0}_Gend_Page_{1}.aspx", pageName, i), articlePageLayout);
newPage.Update();
}
} catch (Exception ex) {

throw new Exception(ex);
}
finally
{
   // properly dispose of the resources
site.Dispose();
siteCollection.RootWeb.Dispose();
siteCollection.Dispose();
 }
}

Edit Page menu item missing or disabled in the sharepoint publishing site actions menu

2007-06-23T16:48:00.000-07:00

Situation:

After creating the master page with all the place holders, edit page menu link in the site actions menu is disabled or hidden.

Reason:

Master Page is missing the editable regions(webpart zone) or page has been checked out to another user.

Fix:

Go to the 'Pages' document library, where all the publishing content pages are stored and check whether the specific page is checked out to any user. if it is checked out to any, ask that person to check in or forc the page to un do the check out. You can also check the status of the page from the Sharepoint Designer.
Check whether any editable region ( webpart zone) existing on the page. If not, then open the page in sharepoint designer -> insert -> sharepoint controls -> webpart zone.
Edit Page menu item is disabled until there is a single webpart zone availalble on the page.
Check for the SP Navigation delegate control on the page. If not, then add the following lines in the master page. SP navigation delegate is the one that contains 'submit for approval' /approve/ reject buttons on the page while the page is in the edit mode.

<asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="WSSDesignConsole" runat="server">

<wssuc:DesignModeConsole id="IdDesignModeConsole" runat="server"/>

</asp:ContentPlaceHolder>

<asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="SPNavigation" runat="server">

<tr>

<td>

<SharePoint:DelegateControl runat="server" ControlId="PublishingConsole"    PrefixHtml="

<tr>

<td colspan="4" id="mpdmconsole" class="ms-consolemptablerow">"    SuffixHtml="</td></tr>">

</SharePoint:DelegateControl>

</td>

</tr>

</asp:ContentPlaceHolder>

System.Security.SecurityException: Request for the permission of type 'System.Net.WebPermission, System, Version=2.0.0.0 in the sharepoint

2007-06-22T11:26:00.000-07:00

Situation:

You have a custom ASP.NET code depolying to the sharepoint area. You have added the strong named assembly to the GAC (or) 80/bin. After the iisreset (or) application recycle you see the following error:

Security ExceptionDescription: The application attempted to perform an operation not allowed by the security policy. To grant this application the required permission please contact your system administrator or change the application’s trust level in the configuration file.
Exception Details: System.Security.SecurityException: Request for the permission of type ‘System.Net.WebPermission, System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089′ failed.
Source Error:
An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.

Reason: .NETCAS( Code Access Security) restricts the managed code at the sharepoint cost!

Fix:

Very simple than you imagined!

On the sharepoint server, Go to the folder "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\CONFIG"
Open the config file "wss_minimaltrust.config"

Under the XML section <namedpermissionsets> and under the last <permissionset> add the following:

<IPermission class="System.Net.WebPermission, System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089"
                version="1"
                Unrestricted="true" >
</IPermission>

You are all set. (No iisreset/app pool recycle is needed)

Sharepoint BDC search application Full Crawl error

2007-06-18T16:24:00.000-07:00

Whenever you write a BDC search application, you follow the steps below:

Write an XML application that searches using a query on one of the properties in the entity by using the "specific Finder" method against the backend database metadata specified in the XML.
SSP -> Import Application Definition -> Browse -> Import.
Ignore the warning message "Profile page creation skipped". It says, its not on a specific single user find and can not create a profile link in the results.
SSP -> Search settings -> Content sources and crawl schedules -> New content source -> Type the name -> Select Business Data from the types of contents available -> Crawl selected app -> select your app

Now, you get the error, when you click on the "start Full Crawl" menu option from the BDC Content source just added.

Reason: There is a problem with your authentications Your current authentication doesn not have the ability to control the search service. Sharepoint Security doesnot allow Your authintications.

Incremental crawl does not work some times, if your applicaiton doesnt include the 'column' that stores the history of the crawl, that tells when was the last time the BDC crawled.

Fix:

SSP -> Search settings -> Default content access account -> Enter the Id and passwrd.
SSP -> Business Data Catalog -> View Applications -> Click on the Application name -> Manage Permissions -> New User -> add the same user id and pwd that you mentioned in the step1.
Click on the 'Copy all permissions to descendants.( This will give permissions on the main entity and all the entities within the entiry)
Sharepoint Central Admin Home page -> Operations -> Services on server -> Office Sharepoint Server Search -> Farm Seach Service Account -> Configurable -> Enter the same ID and pwd that you entered in the step1 and 2.
Wait for 1 minute, as the cache will take 1 minute to load the XML metadata into the BDC object.
SSP -> Serch settings -> scopes -> select the BDC scope -> start full crawl.
Click on the 'refresh' until you see the 'Idle' value.

How to test the query performance and analyze

This is only to test the query running or not.
Go to SQL server and start the profiler to check the queries status.
Start Full Crawl on the BDC scope.
After you clicked on the 'Full Crawl' , you will see the queries started running in the Profiler.
If you do not get the queries running, you can click on the 'View Crawl Log' or Open the sharepoint logs(12 hive\logs) to see whats wrong!

The workflow failed to start due to an internal error in sharepoint 2007.

2007-06-11T14:21:00.000-07:00

This error is due to the workflow features messed up in the site/site collection level.
WF will be messed up due to various reasons, lets walk through the reasons and fixes.

Scenario:
I personally experienced this error, while trying to instantiate a saved template(.stp) at the site collection level (STSADM -o addtemplate).
The Site colelction from where I created the source.stp was never activated with the workflow features. Now, when I added this site collection template while creating the site collection(destination site collection) from the SCA, This destination site collection was still provisioning to the source template's features. Thus caused the error.

The other reason is due to the 'collaboration' template. When you select 'collaboration' template and try to go for the workflows you get the above error. Coz, by default, publishing through the collaboration template is prohibited.

Other reason is the security restrictions on the Infopath Form. To fix this follow the 5th point in the fix.

Fix:

First of all see whether the supported workflow features( Office SharePoint Server Standard Site features - and - Routing workflow features ) are activated in the site collection level or nor.
In the destination site, where the error caused, De activate the workflow related features and re activate. (Site Actions -> Site Settings -> Site Collection Features)
If you can not see the workflow features in the site collection/site level, these fatures might have got scope = "farm". and Hidden = 'True'. If so, then delete the workflow eatures and add them from the STSADM command.
Once you are done with the above steps, remove the workflow from the list/lib and configure it again to start over.
Still no luck, time to re install the Windows Workflow foundation.
Lodctr c:\Windows\Microsoft.Net\Framework\v3.0\Windows WorkflowFoundation\perfcounters.ini

The reason for above WF reload is, some times the WF will be bugged while rebuilding the performance counters on the Sharepoint Server.
In the case of infopath forms, increase the trust level to 'Full Trust'.

Enable ASP.NET dubugging for sharepoint in web.config

2007-06-03T12:40:00.000-07:00

By default, ASP.NET debugger mode is off. To turn on do the following:

Log on to the application server that you want to on the debugging
reach the web.config of the web application(C:\Intetpub\wwwroot\wss\virtual folders\80\web.config) . If your application is other than 80, you need to go to that folder.
Replace the below node values:

<SafeMode MaxControls="200" CallStack="false" ...>
<!-- Replace this line with-->
<SafeMode MaxControls="200" CallStack="true" ...>

<customErrors mode="On" />
<!-- Replace this line with -->
<customErrors mode="Off" />

<compilation batch="false" debug="false">
<!-- Replace this line with -->
<compilation batch="true" debug="true">

If you get have the minimal trust level, you will get the following error: Unable to read the security policy file for trust level 'WSS_Medium'

Make the following change:

<!--<trust level="WSS_Minimal" originUrl="" />-->
   <trust level="Full" originUrl="" />

hosting two sites at the root of a sharepoit web application

2007-06-02T16:14:00.000-07:00

how to co-host traditional "team" and personal Site Collections (My Sites) within an individual Web Application in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. While possible, there are several important steps that you should be aware of.

The public profile page is a document specific to the SPSMSITEHOST site template (My Site Host); unless a My Site Host is defined in the server farm, public profile pages will not be available to users.

A Web Application can have only one (1) root Site Collection, and as a result can host only one (1) site template. In a portal specific scenario, an Enterprise site template is generally applied to the root Site Collection, typically the Publishing or Collaboration portal.

To ensure the public profile page is made available to the root Site Collection, it becomes necessary to establish a web under the root Site Collection that will host the My Site Host site template.

In order to achieve this you will need to create a new web at http:/// that will host the My Site Host site template containing person.aspx.

Person.aspx is hosted in the %commonprogramfiles%\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\TEMPLATE\SiteTemplates\SPSMSITEHOST directory.

There are several considerations that apply to this scenario:

· The SPSMSITEHOST template must be applied to the web hosting the public profile page.

· The web hosting the My Site Host site template cannot use an existing managed path, e.g. /personal or /sites.

· The Shared Services Provider (SSP) should be configured to use the root Site Collection + My Site Host web as the My Site Host.

This can be configured under Shared Services Administration User Profiles and My Sites My Site settings Personal Site Services.

· The root web application should have the managed path /personal defined in Central Administration to maintain URL differentiation between traditional "team" and personal Site Collections.

This process will permit continuation of the typical SharePoint Portal Server 2003 configuration and Site Collection hosting model with one key difference:
· Personal Site Collections will be available to users through http:///.
· Public profile pages will be rendered to users through http:///?person.aspx?guid=.
The example scenario below illustrates a database migration approach upgrade where a root web application is selected as both the traditional "team" and personal Site Collection host:
Step 1 Upgrade the _SITE database using the database migration approach. See command line reference below:
STSADM -o -addcontentdb -url http:// -databaserver -databasename _SITE
Step 2 Upgrade the database hosting the personal site collections using the database migration approach. See command line reference below:
STSADM -o -addcontentdb -url http:///personal databaserver -databasename
Step 3 Create a new web under the root Web Application (http://) using the My Site Host template. See command line reference below:
STSADM -o createweb -url http:///public -template SPSMSITEHOST -title "Home" -description "Some Description"
Step 4 Introduce the managed path /personal to the root Web Application if it does not already exist.
Step 5 Upgrade the _PROF database using the database migration method. See command line reference below:
STSADM -o restoressp -title -url http:// -ssplogin -mysiteurl http:///public -indexserver -indexlocation "D:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\12.0\Data\Office Server\Applications" -keepindex -sspdatabaseserver -sspdatabasename -ssppassword
This process is beneficial to the database migration upgrade approach in scenarios where you are upgrading the SharePoint Portal Server 2003 _SITE, profile and content databases or optionally select to establish a new SSP in your server farm. If selecting to establish a new SSP; the root web application can be created prior to creating the SSP allowing for the establishment of the new root Site Collection as the My Site Host during the SSP creation.

"Result: 404 File Not Found" while clicking the mysite or my profile in the sharepoint or people search.Person.aspx?guid=

2007-06-02T13:44:00.000-07:00

Problem Grounds for the my site not creation error:

mysite typical URL will be http://webappname/__layouts/mysite.aspx

this URL will be used to form the my site URL for the first time. mysite.aspx page will try to create a my site at the URL: http://webappname/personal/userid/default.aspx. Remember, 'Personal' word in the above URL is reserved. If you try to play with the name, you will get error. eg, Admin will go to SCA-> application management -> managed paths and delete the 'personal' managed path.

Fix

Always remember, never delete the 'personal' wild card inclusion. This 'personal' is always of type 'wild card' inclusion. Coz, all the profiles are going to be included under this managed path. As you already know that if any managed path is going to include so many site collections, you need go for a 'wild card' managed path.

As long as the 'personal' wild card managed path is available, the url http://webappname/__layouts/mysite.aspx will always work and produce a my site.

Now we got the my site and fine with that. But, when you try to click on the 'my profile' link, you will get 404 error.

Problem Grounds for the my profile click redirecting to 404 page:

success scenario:

Lets start by analysing the successful deployed my site's 'my profile' tab button link URL :
http://webappname/Person.aspx?accountname=domain\username

In the above case, My Site Host was deployed to the root site(http://webappname/).
This is the reason why an aspx page (Person.aspx) is able to include and be browsable directly within the root.
My site settings(SCA -> SSP -> my site settings) shows the following config:

If there is a site existing at the root site not with the 'my site host' template, problem will arise.
Administrator has to plan for the 'my site host' site at the root site always.

There is a site created with a non 'my site' template(i.e team/publishing) at the root site.
There is no personel site provider specified in the SSP - > mysite settings.

SCA Admin created a my site host at http://servername:1234, but changed the personal site provider URL in the SSP -> mysite settings.
i.e, yo Admin changed the path of Personal Site Services from http://ServerName:1234/ to http://ServerName:80.
The site collection to which he moved the personal site provider, already has a site template(team/publish) applied to it.

Any of the above scenarios, if a user connects to a My Site personal site that the user created in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and even though my site is created success fully , user will get displayed with the 404 error when clicking on the my profile link. Even the people serach scope will fail so. Coz, when you select 'people' from the scope and type the people name, possible matching users are displayed in the search results. Now, if you see the navigation link by clicking on the user name, it will be pointed to http://webappname/Person.aspx?guid=some number123445tyuuii776565

Work around:

Check whether any team site/publishing site exists at the 'http://sitename/' location.
If there is no site, then create a my site host. If there is a team/publishing site existing, then follow the below procedure.

All we need to get is the URL structures,

As long as you have a wild card managed path named 'personal' , and if you have mentioned 'personal' in the 'Location' text box in the my site settings(SSA -> serach setings) you are fine with the first URL.

To achieve the second URL, follow the below procedure:

create an exclusive managed path
SCA -> application management -> define managed paths -> type a name (e.g. mypath) -> select "exclusive" in the inclusion. Click OK.
SCA -> application management -> create site collection -> select the web application you want -> select the managed path that you created in the step1(eg. mypath) -> select the 'enterprise' tab and select the

Under Shared Services Administration, click Shared Service Provider (SSP).

On the home page, click My Site settings under User Profiles and My Sites.

On the My Site settings page, type the URL of the included path in the Personal site provider box in the Personal Site Services area.
Configure the options that you want for the other settings, and then click OK.

Note: If you have amy mysites already built, then you need to move the locations by stsadm command.
STSADM.exe -o backup & STSADM.exe -o restore

Possible Errors:

Error: "There has been an error creating the personal site" message:

Reason: The account that the My Site applicaiton pool is running under doesn't need any special Windows permissions. But it will need the dbcreator role in SQL Server.

Fix: So, change the identity of the my site application pool to an account that has the dbcreator role.

Sharepoint Search - Can't see "All Sites" or "People" from the drop down list when search

2007-06-02T13:33:00.000-07:00

Change the results display page

Site Settings -> site collection settings -> search settings

The second radio button option "Do not use custom scopes. Display results in the search results page (/_layouts/osssearchresults.aspx)." is meant for the "This site" entry in the drop down.
The forst radio button option "Use custom scopes. Display richer results using the following Search Center:" is meant for custom drop down items like "people" and "All sites" options.
To select this option, you need to have a "search center" team site. this team site will be created automatically if you have enterprise sharepoint edition, if you do not have enterprise version, create a search center site. ( site actions -> Create -> website -> Enterprise tab -> search center with tabs)
Once you get the site, get the URL copied and pasted into the "Do not use custom scopes. Display results in the search results page (/_layouts/osssearchresults.aspx)." option text box.

sharepoint storage statistcs and limitations

2007-05-27T20:26:00.000-07:00

Under a managed path a Web Application can support up to 150,000 site collections (site collections are likely to be spread across multiple content databases).

125 host header configuration site collections.

A single site collection storage requirements would exceed the recommended 100 Gb max content db size

Multiple site collections can share a content db but the db should not exceed 100Gb.

more than 100 managed paths would cause performance issues. If you copy a content database to another farm you must have the same managed paths in the other environment or else you will not be able to resolve the sites.

URL Redirections for sharepoint from IIS

2007-05-21T16:54:00.000-07:00

Vanity URLs:

You can map a short URL(http://sales/) to a long URL(http://International/US/sales) from the IIS.

Create a New Virtual Directory(site) with the short name you want(http://sales/)
Keep all the default values in the wizard.

After creating the new site, go back to the IIS and right click on the newly created Website(http://sales/) -> Properties -> Home Directory -> select the "A redirection to a URL" radio button -> type the big URL(http://International/US/sales).

Each time the user types http://sales/ in the browser, the application pool assigned in the IIS will get invoked and assigned as the resources. Thus wasting the part of application pool for an unwanted. Although you are done with the redirect, you may follow the below steps to utilize the resources to the best.

Create a new Application pool in IIS.(right click on the application pools -> New)

Name the application pool and complete the wizard.

right click on the application pool created -> Properties -> Performance -> Shut down the worker process after being Idle for -> 1 minute.

Go back to the Websites -> right click on the website redirect -> properties -> set the new application pool to be used.

Redirect from a Sharepoint Page:

If you want the user to automatically redirect to a new destination page(http://newserver/newsite/page2.aspx) from the old page (http://oldserver/oldsite/page1.aspx), you need write the following meta tag inside a content editor webpart on the page1.aspx.

Moss Redirect Content Type:

MOSS publishing pages by default have 'redirect' pages associated. If you see the 'New' toolbar menu on any publishing site's 'Pages' document library, you will find the redirect page. Create the page -> edit properties -> set the destination URL. you are all set.

This feature is not available in team sites.

Configuring the InfoPath Forms Services in sharepoint 2007

2007-05-21T08:44:00.000-07:00

InfoPath Forms Services provides you with the ability to deploy your organization's forms to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and enable users to fill out these forms using a Web browser

Custom form templates that contain form code, require full trust, or use a data connection managed by a server administrator must be approved and deployed by an administrator. Such form templates are called "administrator-approved form templates".

If a form template does not contain form code, require full trust, or use a data connection managed by an administrator, you can configure InfoPath Forms Services to permit users to deploy such form templates, called "user form templates," without administrator approval.

Configure the Admin approved InfoPath Forms Services at the Farm level:

Start -> Administrative Tools -> SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration
-> Application Management -> InfoPath Forms Services -> Configure InfoPath Form Services
-> User Browser-enabled Form Templates section:

Select the Allow users to browser-enable form templates check box to allow users to deploy browser-enabled form templates.
Select the Render form templates that are browser-enabled by users check box to allow browser-enabled form templates deployed by users to be rendered in a Web browser. If this option is not selected, users can still deploy browser-compatible form templates, but these form templates are not accessible through a Web browser.

Data Connection Timeouts Section:

Set the default data connection timeout. Can override to any value lesser than this from the code
Set the Maximum data connection timeout. Can override to any value lesser than this.

Data Connection Response Size Section:

Data Connection responses size exceeding the value specified here causes the error.

HTTP data connections Section:

If you hace SSL setup, then only select the Require SSL for HTTP authentication to data sources box.

Embedded SQL Authentication section:

select the Allow embedded SQL authentication box to allow forms to use embedded SQL credentials. Forms that connect to databases may embed SQL user name and password data in the connection string. The connection string can be read in plaintext in the universal data connection file associated with the solution, or in the solution manifest.

Authentication to data sources (user form templates) section:

select the Allow user form templates to use authentication information contained in data connection files box to allow user form templates to use embedded authentication information such as an explicit user name and password or a Microsoft Single Sign-On application ID.

Cross-Domain Access for User Form Templates :

select the Allow cross-domain data access for user form templates that use connection settings in a data connection file box to allow user form templates to access data from another domain. By selecting this, we can bind a contol on the form located in Site A to a sharepoint list column located on the Site B.

Thresholds section:

specify the thresholds at which to end user sessions and log error messages. Form operations that exceed these thresholds will terminate the user session, resulting in the loss of all form data entered during the session, and generate an error message.
In the Number of postbacks per form session state box, type the maximum number of postbacks you want to allow. The default value is 75.
In the Number of actions per postback box, type the maximum number of actions per postback you want to allow. The default value is 200.

Form session state:

All the default settigns would work most senarios. To learn more about this sessions, see my blog 'Understanding InfoPath session state'.
In the Active sessions should be terminated after text box, type the maximum session duration in minutes. Form-filling sessions that exceed this value will terminate, an error message will be generated, and all form data entered during the session will be lost. The default value is 1440 minutes.
In the Maximum size of form session state text box, type the maximum session state size in kilobytes. Form-filling sessions that exceed this value will terminate, an error message will be generated, and all form data entered during the session will be lost. The default value is 4096 kilobytes.
In the Select the location to use for storing form session state section, choose
Session State Service (best for low-bandwidth users)
Store session state data on the computer running Microsoft SQL Server

Form view (reduces database load on server)
Store session state data on the client computer. If form session state is larger than the value specified in the associated text box, the Session State Service will be used instead.
In the associated text box, type the session state size in kilobytes at which form view will be automatically transitioned to the Session State Service. Once this threshold is reached, session state data will be saved to the SQL Server database, and the session will continue to use the Session State Service. The default value is 40 kilobytes.

Click OK.

Till here we are done with the Farm level configurations.
Now, lets look at the
Site Collection/Site level config:

Now that you have done with the fam level setttings, activate the 'Office SharePoint Server Enterprise Site features' feature in the sharepoint central admin and the site that you want to deploy the infopath form to be available.

Open the InfoPath form designer and design a form. Select the Browser settings in the form and apply full trust. In the publishing form wizard, check the 'Enable this form to be filled out by using browser' option that enables the 'administrator approved form template' radio button. Select the radio button and publish to a location where the fam admin can access on the file share.

Add the template to the central admin by uploading the .xsn file.

Now all we need to do is to to enable the form template available in the central admin to be available to a site collection.

Start -> Administrative Tools -> SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration -> Application Management -> InfoPath Forms Services -> Manage form templates

Select the form template you want to apply and click on 'Activate to a Site Collection'.
(Check the default web application/site collection names. You can change the web app/site collection by clicking on the 'change' drop down and select the needed.
Now, we made the template available to the site collection.To activate a form template to a site collection, go to the site Actions - > Site Settings -> Site Collection Admin -> Site Collection Features -> Find the named template and click on 'Activate' button.
Now the form will be available in the 'Form Templates' library in the site collection.

Updating the administrator-approved form templates:

Each administrator-approved form template is uniquely identified by its embedded uniform resource name (URN). So each time you change/create an infopath form in the design mode and ty to upload in to the Farm level form templates, if the new template name is not matched in the exisiting old form templates, it will crate a new template and assigns a new URN(New form upload scenario). If any name matched, sharepoint compares the available template's URN with the new template's URN being uploaded.

If the New template URN is less than or equal to the Old emplate URN, the upload process will fail and error message will show the failure message.
If the New template URN > Old template URN
You will have 4 options:

Option 1. Allow existing browser-based form-filling sessions to finish using the current version of the form template.

Option 2. Terminate existing browser-based form filling sessions. This approach is useful in the event that a form template is found to contain a serious bug or security issue, and you want to make the form template unavailable immediately.

Option 3. Perform a gradual upgrade, in which you upload the new version as a separate form template, and eventually remove the old version when it is no longer being accessed by users. This is a useful approach when your form template is accessible as an embedded form or through a link on a Web page, and you are not concerned about the possibility of the old version being accessed during the upgrade process. With both form templates available on InfoPath Forms Services, you can modify the link to the form template on your Web page.

Option 4. Quiesce the form template before upgrading to the new version. When you quiesce a form template, you gradually transition a form template from an active to an inactive state. This upgrade method is useful when you want to ensure that a form template cannot be accessed after a given time.

How to quiesce a form template:
SharePoint Central Administration -> Application Management -> InfoPath Forms Services -> Manage form templates.

In the Manage Form Templates page you will see a Status column. Form templates that are available to users will be designated as Ready.
Point to the file you want to upgrade, click the arrow that appears, and then from the menu select Quiesce Settings.
Type the number of minutes you want the quiescing process to take. On a production system, you should quiesce the form for at least as long as the session state is configured for the server. By default, session state is configured for 240 minutes.
Click Start Quiescing. In the Quiesce section, the status changes to Quiescing.
To see whether your form has successfully quiesced,
Application Management tab -> InfoPath Forms Services -> Manage form templates.
On the Manage Form Templates page, in the Status column, form templates that you have quiesced will be designated as Quiesced.
After the form template is quiesced, you can deploy the upgraded new version of the form.

Ref:MSDN KB

"Updating the Content Type Fialed" Error in Sharepoint

2007-05-20T15:24:00.000-07:00

Situation:

While trying to re publish an Infopath form library encounter the error "Updating the Content Type Fialed".

Reason:

When you re publish an Infopath form template to the InfoPath form library, the template will call 'lists.asmx' webservice to convert the web enabled Infopath fields to a shrepoint form library. This web service was hard coded to expire in 30 seconds. Thus the time between the publish button click and error message "Updating the Content Type Fialed" will be 31 seconds.
This 30 seconds delay may be caused by many factors.

So many columns being published to the form library.
Poor network pace.
Poor SQL server pace.

Fix

If you have Network/SQL server issues, catch the admin.
For library column contraint, follow this fix:

Open the Infopath form template in a design mode.
File -> Publish -> “To a SharePoint server” -> Destination library URL ->
Next -> “Document Library” -> “Update the form template in an existing library” and choose the library from the list.
This step is the trick.
next screen, you’ll have the option to add your columns. When you click the “Add” button, instead of opting to have InfoPath create the column for you (i.e. the “None: Creat the new column” option), select the “This document library” option from the first drop-down, then select the appropriate column name from the second drop-down box .
Initially you will not have the column name available in the drop down. You need to crate the desired column in the form library before you could start the step 1.

If you still have the error, remove some un wanted columns being published to the form library. That will reduce the publishing time.

'The server could not complete your request' error in sharepoint designer

2007-04-10T12:20:00.000-07:00

Problem Definition:

While editing the content editor webpart, you get the javascript error 'Cannot 'The server could not complete your request' . Some times it allows you to get in to the SPD, upon saving the content, it throws 'Cannot save your changes in sharepoint'

Reason:

Some times, you try to edit pages in SPD, you try to edit the HTML/script in some format that is not understandable to sharepoint'. Though it saves the script , some times throw the error. At this time application pool is currupted with the invalid formats. So, if you open the SPD again, server throws the error 'The server could not complete your request' .

Fix:

Recycle the application pool.go to IIS -> web sites -> right click on the application pool -> recycle.

"Error code is: -2147418113 while uploading large content to the doc lib in sharepoint

2007-04-07T10:29:00.000-07:00

It may possible the SSO or any other service to break after the time out reached in the upload.
After the the break, application pools take time to recover or dead in the state, causing un expected error. Sharepoint log (12 hive\logs) shows the "Error code is: -2147418113' code.

Work Around: Go to the Application pool in the IIS, right click and recycle the pool.
Still not solved, IISRESET. Further error, edit the SSO to be manual.

Can not save your changes error while editing the content editor webpart

2007-03-27T11:39:00.000-07:00

Scenario:
After Editing the CEWP, clicking on the 'OK' , throws 'Can not save your changes' errror.

Fix:
After looking at the error log, do the following options.

IIS Reset.
If you think IISReset can cause the whole application to halut for some time, Do the Application Pool recycle.
Start->Admin->IIS -> Local computer -> Application pool of the web application -> rightclick ->Recycle application pool.
Check for the SSL issues. To know whether the error is due to the SSL or not, access the site with the URL: http://LoadIPAddress/sites/sitecollection/site and try to edit the CEWP. If success, check for the IP address map in the IIS(richt click on the webappp -> Properties) and make it to 'Un Assigned'. Still not succeeded, check with the SSL settings.
Check the memory status of the DataBase SQL server. If it is less, increase the size.

Run stsadm command from any path

2007-03-21T10:03:00.000-07:00

Every time you try to run the STSADM command, you always need to change the current command directory path to C:/ProgramFiles/.../12/Bin . To avoid that, do tha following thing. This will be helpful for the bulk shell scripts exetion wth the .

Control panel > System > Advanced system settings > Environment Variables >
Locate the “System Variables” section and select "Path" > Click edit.

Append the below string at the end of the line:
C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\12\BIN

list does not exist error on a publishing site

2007-03-15T12:56:00.000-07:00

Problem:
SiteCollection administrator/designers/approvers do not see this error.
Any normal user(including the full control/site owner gropu user) accessing any page in the site gets the error: The page you selected contains a list that does not exist. It may have been deleted by another user. Troubleshoot issues with Windows SharePoint Services.

Reason 1:
Here the list is not a normal list. It is the 'Masterpage gallery' list. This error is due to the fact that all the users/groups are not added to the 'Master Page Gallery' by default. This happened to me after activating the publishing feature to a collaboration site.

Fix 1:

Go to the master page gallery associated with the site. http://sitename/sites/site/_layouts/sitemanager.aspx
Click on the 'master page gallery' context menu -> Edit Properties -> Permissions for this document library -> add the group/user with contributor access. Read access also fine

Reason 2:

The page layout/master page is checked out or in approval state pending.

Fix 2:

Open the site in sharepoint designer and check-in/approve the masterpage/page lay out.

DVWP issue with site template

2007-03-10T12:45:00.000-08:00

Data View WebParts are binded with the site names implicitly. So when you create a site template out of the site that has the DVWP, there will be an issue. New sites provisioned from the site template will fail to load due to the reason that the site name is different.

Fix:
Replace the code with the following. In the below code, replace the 'Your List name' value with your actual list name.

< SelectParameters>
<WebPartPages:DataFormParameter PropertyName="ParameterValues" ParameterKey="ListName" DefaultValue="Your List name" Name="ListName">
 
<DeleteParameters> <WebPartPages:DataFormParameter PropertyName="ParameterValues" ParameterKey="ListName" DefaultValue="Your List name" Name="ListName">

<UpdateParameters> <WebPartPages:DataFormParameter PropertyName="ParameterValues" ParameterKey="ListName" DefaultValue="Your List name" Name="ListName">

<InsertParameters> <WebPartPages:DataFormParameter PropertyName="ParameterValues" ParameterKey="ListName" DefaultValue="Your List name" Name="ListName">

<parameterbindings> <ParameterBinding Name="ListName" Location="None" DefaultValue="Your List name"/>
<ParameterBinding Name="dvt_apos" Location="Postback;Connection"/>
<ParameterBinding Name="UserID" Location="CAMLVariable" DefaultValue="CurrentUserName"/>
<ParameterBinding Name="Today" Location="CAMLVariable" DefaultValue="CurrentDate"/>

Backup and Restore in MOSS 2007

2007-03-09T10:53:00.000-08:00

Central Admin:
Central Administration -> Operations -> Perform a Backup

STSADM:
Backup a site collection:
stsadm –o backup –url -filename
Restore to a site collection:
stsadm –o restore –url -filename
you can not backup or resore a single site using above command.
Backup a single site
stsadm –o export –url -filename
Restore a single site
stsadm –o import –url filename
export/import may miss some functionality.. so double check.

Database backups:
This is probably the approach you will end up using most often. SharePoint stores all its data in SQL Server. Also, a site, or site collection, is nothing but data. Thus it is reasonable to assume that this data, can be easily backed up and restored using standard SQL Server mechanisms.
SharePoint stores its data in content databases. A single website can have a number of content databases, and a content database can contain one or more site collections. In other words, you cannot scope a content database to a single site or single list level.
You can view all the content databases associated with a given web application under central administration à Application Management à SharePoint Web Application Managementà Content Databases. This can be seen as below:

From this screen, you can add or remove content databases to a given web site. When you add a content database, you have the facility of specifying a database server and a content database name. If the database already exists on the server, it will be used as is. If in case the database does not exist on the server, it will be created for you by the farm account.
You can use this behavior to your advantage to backup restore web sites. In order to backup a web site, you simply backup all the content databases associated with the web application. In order to restore a website, you restore the content databases, and perform the extra step of specifying new site collection administrators in the new environment.
This is a fairly robust mechanism of backing up and restoring your SharePoint environment and I suspect that in any serious installation, this is what you will end up using the most anyway. This by far, however is not enough. Depending upon the specific needs of your SharePoint environment, also want to invest in the following:
Backup the entire 12 hive (c:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\12). This is because, frequently you will deploy code to your SharePoint farm, and you will need to restore the supporting physical files for the site to work properly.
You need to keep monitoring the size of your content databases. If you start hitting the 50GB mark, think of splitting them up, so the backups are done overnight before users start hitting the database in the morning.
Backup the entire INETPUB directory.
4. Always maintain a path to restore the current state of the production environment as various releases are pushed into production. This can be achieved by following the below recommendations:
a. Always use a scripted deployment process with clear instructions for deploying code to production. Give special attention to ensuring releases capable of taking your SharePoint installation from one version to another. With various releases, your scripts and instructions should be capable of taking a fresh SharePoint installation to the current production state.
b. Always deploy custom code as solutions, not fragile xcopy scripts.
c. Backup source control databases, and establish a strong version control policy for all code that goes into production.
d. Document all customizations and administration done under central administration for every release.
e. Follow standard disaster recovery best practices, such as regular and verified backups, off-site storage etc.
f. Backup Shared Service providers and Central Administration using stsadm after every significant configuration change or production release.
Backing up shared service providers
You can backup and restore an SSP in a mechanism similar to restoring any other SharePoint website. You must however perform the additional step of associating the SSP with the appropriate web applications after such a restore has been performed. This may be achieved using the following steps.
Under central administration, click on the “Shared Services Administration” on the left side of the page.
Once on the “Manage this farms shared services” page, click on “Restore SSP”.
Now assuming that you have already restored the SSP on a site, complete the required fields on the page shown. Just make sure that you specify the restored web application and database that the SSP site has already been restored to.
Backing up search
Search is probably the weirdest portion to backup on a SharePoint installation. First of all, given the additional complexity that backing up search requires, it might be a good idea to go with rebuilding the indexes for small or even medium sized farms. However, if your search database is huge, and your farm is quite big, and you need search to be online shortly after a disaster, you will need to look into an appropriate strategy for backing up search.
The reason backing up search is different than other portions of SharePoint, is because of how search works. Search data is stored in two locations, the search database, and the index files on the disk. You need both in order to be able to successfully serve search queries. Not only both, but you need both of them backed up concurrently for the restored versions to work together. In other words, if the search index was backed up 5 minutes after the search database, the index entries created in the additional 5 minutes will cause inconsistent results in the restored search.
In order to ensure this consistency, you should backup search using SharePoint 2007’s backup tool, or a third party product.

Change a MOSS site logo and image

2007-03-06T13:46:00.000-08:00

By Default, MOSS will show a site logo and image.
Procedure to override this images:

Open the Local_Drive:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\TEMPLATE\IMAGES directory.
Copy the images that you want to appear on the home pages of your Web sites to this directory.
Remove the image files TITLEGRAPHIC.GIF and HOMEPAGE.GIF, which contain the logos used on the left and right sides of the home page, respectively.
Rename the new image files TITLEGRAPHIC.GIF and HOMEPAGE.GIF.
All sites now display new logos on their home pages.

Your search cannot be completed because of a service error. Try your search again or contact your administrator for more information.

2007-03-01T12:54:00.000-08:00

I got this error while searching a 'Yes/No' field in correctly.

I setup a managed property "ExtraInfo" in the SSP on a 'Yes/No' crawled property.
After a full crawl, I tried to search the managed property with a string "ExtraInfo:Yes"

got the error: Your search cannot be completed because of a service error. Try your search again or contact your administrator for more information.

Fix:

Search "ExtraInfo:true" instead of "ExtraInfo:Yes"
Sharepoint crawler indexes the value with the internal boolean values "true/false".
If you are searching for a vaue using the custom code in SPQuery, use '1' and '0' instead of 'yes/no' or 'true/false'.
SPQuery goes with the crawled content with '0' and '1'.

InfoPath error: The server is running InfoPath Forms Services, but the compatibility settings for this form template is InfoPath only

2007-02-22T13:55:00.000-08:00

Issue:
While publishing an InfoPath form, you wil get an error "The server is running InfoPath Forms Services, but the compatibility settings for this form template is InfoPath only".

Reason:
This issue is due to the reason that InfoPath form was not configured that it can be opened on browsers also. You need to go to the form template and modify the settings to open the infopath form in a browser or InfoPath applicatoin. If you do not configure the below settings in the fix, forms will be always opened in the InfoPath application on the client. If the user do not have InfoPath installed on his machine, he will get the error. If you have a requirement that the form needs to be open in the InfoPath only, then just ignore this fix.

Fix:
Go to the form template(.XSN) and do the following:

1. Tools -> Form Options
2. Select "Compatibility" from the categories on the left hand quick launch
3. Check the option "Design a form template that can be opened in a browser or InfoPath".
4. click OK

An error has occurred while accessing the SQL Server database or the Office SharePoint Server Search service

2007-02-15T15:10:00.000-08:00

Problem:

While accessing the User Profiles and Properties page in a SSP, you get the error: "An error has occurred while accessing the SQL Server database or the Office SharePoint Server Search service. If this is the first time you have seen this message, try again later. If this problem persists, contact your administrator."
While accessing the "Search Settings page" in a ssp, you get the error :
"Insufficient memory to continue the execution of the program"

Fix:

Try to access the search properties page in SSP.
If you get "An indexer is not assigned to the Shared Services Provider" error, then do the following:
Application Tab -> Create or Manage this farm’s shared services -> SSP context menu -> Edit Properties -> Assign the proper index server.
If you have an Index server already assigned, then go to step 2.
Restart the search service on the Index server and all the WFEs.
Start -> Run
net stop osearch
net start osearch
If you are still in the woods, check whether the Search crawler account has enough permissions access on the DB.
-Step1: Central Administration > Operations > Services on Server > Office SharePoint Server Search Service Setting -> Note down the Farm Search Service Account
- Step2: Go to Central Administration > Shared Services > Personalization services permissions -> add the account that you noted in the first step with Manage Uer Profiles and manage Permissions.
If you get this issue after you just restored the farm, then open the config db table in the SQL server and look for the record that contains the id "1AAB936C-E65C-4829-9683-5CCF5BAB90B0" that points to the search service. If you do not get to see this record then insert a record with the same id and name.

Cannot connect to the configuration database Sharepoint page and central administration

2007-02-15T12:53:00.000-08:00

Problem Definition:

Sharepoint page throws 'Cannot connect to the configuration database'

Error :

Reason:

backend database is down or authentication failed.

Fix:

To fix this problem, you need to know the database server's name. If you know the server's name, you can skip the below and follow the step 1.

Database server name will be specified on the Sharepoint central administration's home page. But, if this error occurs, SCA will be also down. So the only way you will come to know is through logs. Default location of the logs is 'C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\Logs'

In the logs, you will see some thing like this:

Critical Cannot connect to SQL Server. 'Your DB server name' not found. Additional error information from SQL Server is included below. [DBNETLIB][ConnectionOpen (Connect()).]SQL Server does not exist or access denied. OWSTIMER.EXE (0x09C4) 0x127C Windows SharePoint Services Database

System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. The server was not found or was not accessible. Verify that the instance name is correct and that SQL Server is configured to allow remote connections. (provider: Named Pipes Provider, error: 40 - Could not open a connection to SQL Server)

Once you got the server name, follow the below steps:

Check whether the database server is down. If it is down, start the server.

Check whether Database server's MSSQLSERVER service is stopped. If stopped, start the service
Start -> Programs -> admin tools -> Services -> MSSQLSERVER -> Right click -> Start
(Note: Some servers will have MS$SHAREPOINTSERVER)

Check whether the MSSQLSERVER service id/pwd is same as the sharepoint Application pool identity or not.

steps to know the MSSQLSERVER identity:
Start -> Programs -> admin tools -> Services -> MSSQLSERVER -> Double click -> Logon

steps to know the Application Pool identity:
Start -> Programs -> admin tools -> IIS ->right click on the specific application pool that your application is running on -> Properties -> Identity

If these two Id/pwds are not same, then make it same.
Also check whether the password is expired/changed.

Cannot Retrieve Properties at this Time and Cannot save your changes in sharepoint

2007-02-14T12:03:00.000-08:00

Problem Definition:

While editing the content editor webpart, you get the javascript error 'Cannot Retrieve Properties at this Time'. Some times it allows you to go to the rich text editor or source editor, upon saving the content, it throws, 'Cannot save your changes in sharepoint'

Reason:

Some times, you try to copy the text from Word pad to Sharepoint content editor webpart. In this process, you try to copy some format that is not understandable to sharepoint's CEWP. Though it saves the text some times, some times throw the error. At this time application pool is currupted with the invalid formats. So, if you come to the same CEWP, server throws the error 'Retrieve Properties at this Time'.

Fix:

look at the log and decide which one suits

Recycle the application pool.
go to IIS -> web sites -> right click on the application pool -> recycle.
I heard it some where, not sure.. u can try..
web.config -> go to http modules tag and delete the 'Clear' tag.
look at the ISA settings.

unable to update the information in the microsoft office document shared documents

2007-02-07T13:40:00.000-08:00

Sitiuation:

While selecting 'Edit Properties' from a document's context menu or adding a document to the lib, this error occurs.

Reason:

There are so many reasons, main reason is sharepoint is not capable of changning the metadata of a file due to the metadata is being locked down!

Microsoft documents' metadata gets locked due to any one of the following reasons:

Document is placed to a sharepoint library from another LOB application automatically.
Document is checked out to some other user.
Document is checked in using a different version (eg.DOCX), thus causing an invalid property promotion/demotion.

Fix:

First of all avoid uploading more than 5 MB size doc in the lib.
Down load the document from the doc library to the local desktop location.
Rename/Change the desired metadata that you wanted to edit.
File -> Properties -> Custom Properties -> choose any property like client and
type any value -> Add -> Close the dialog -> Save the document.
Upload the changed document back to the doc library.
If you still face the problem, then check whether MSXML 6.0 is un-installed.
If its un installed, re-install !

Apply default master file to admin pages of Sharepoint!

2007-02-03T09:29:00.000-08:00

http://www.thelineberrys.com/default-category/using-your-sharepoint-sites-master-page-on-all-application-pages-3.html

Contact Selector in InfoPath 2007

2007-02-01T12:10:00.000-08:00

Procudure to create a Contact selector in InfoPath 2007.

Open an infopath form in the design mode.

Design Tasks -> Controls -> Add or Remove Custom Controls(locate this link at the bottom of the pane) -> Add -> ActiveX Controls -> Next -> Contacts Selector.-> next -> Don't include a .cab file -> Next -> Value -> Next -> From the Field or group type box choose Field or group (any data type)(*This is very important*)
Click Finish
Now the content selector control will be diplayed in the controls section.

Now you need to create a schema that will host the Contact selector that we created in the above section.

Design Tasks -> Data Source -> Select the 'myFields' and click on the Add a Field or Group(located at the bottom of the pane, under 'Actions'):
Name : whatever you want (In my case, I named it as 'Grp_Contact_Selector')
Type : Group
OK. ( Do not check the 'Repeating' check box).

Design Tasks -> Data Source -> Select the group name that you just created -> click on Add a Field or Group-> add a repeating 'Group' and name it 'Person'
Name : Person
Type: Group
Check the 'Repeating' check box.
OK.

Select the 'Person' Group field and click on the Add a field or group, add 3 repeating fields under the 'Person' Group named 'DisplayName' , 'AccountId' and 'AccountType'.

A. Creating the 'DisplayName' repeating field
Select the 'Person' group, click on 'Add a field or group'
Name: DisplayName
Type: Field (element)
Data Type : Text (string)
Check the 'Repeating' check box.
OK.

B. Creating the 'AccountId' repeating field
Select the 'Person' group, click on 'Add a field or group'
Name: DisplayName
Type: Field (element) Data
Type : Text (string)
Check the 'Repeating' check box.
OK.

C. Creating the 'AccountType' repeating field

Open Notepad and type the following text within the 'Context' node:
```
<Context siteUrl="http://yourservername" />
```

Name the xml file as 'Context.xml'.

Tools -> Data Connections -> add -> recieve data -> select the "XML Document" -> Next -> Click on the 'Resource Files' -> browse to the XML file that you just created and add to the data conections. Name the connection as 'Context'.
Note: Name of the XML node in the file, Name of the data connection and name of the .XML file should be 'Context' (case sensitive).

You are done! Now drag and drop the newly created Contact selector group onto the form. In my case, its 'Grp_Contact_Selector'.
While dropping on the form, a popup will get displayed with various fields. Select the 'Contact Selector'.
If you can't see the contact selector in the popup double check the above steps, especially the step 2.

If you wanna see the selected contact selector in the infopath form library, then add this contact selector to the promoted fields(File-> publish -> site URL -> Infopath form lib name -> select 'Display Name' out of the above structure and function as 'First'. )

Some times Contact Selector will grey out in the preview mode but you will be able to edit it in the actual 'New' Form.

Multiple Contact Selectors in Infopath 2007:
If you wanna have two or more contact selectors on a signle form, follow the below Procedure:

Create the actual format of the Contact Selector Groups schema(Grp_Contact_Selector) directly under the myFields. We are done creating the 'Grp_Contact_Selector' group in the ablove section. So, I am not repeating the procudure here.

Our goal is to create two more groups as the same hierarchy showed in the above picture, besides the original master contact selector group(Grp_Contact_Selector).
To create the above hieracrchy shown in the figure follow the below procedure.

Create two non repeat groups directly under the 'myFields'. Name it whatever you like. In my example, I named 'Grp_Proj_Manager' and 'Grp_Requester'.

richt click on the master schema group 'Grp_Contact_Selector' group -> 'Reference' -> Browse and select the first folder i.e 'Grp_Proj_Manager'.
(Now all the original master contact selector nodes hierarchy is copied under the 'Grp_Proj_Manager' group).

richt click on the 'Grp_Contact_Selector' group -> click on 'Reference' -> Browse to the second folder i.e 'Grp_Requester'. (Now all the original contact selector nodes hierarchy is copied under the 'Grp_Requester' group).

Now that you have two contact selector schemas under two different groups.
All you need to do is to drag and drop the first group's referenced contact selector template (in my case its 'Grp_Contact_Selector') on to the designer.
Important: Do not drag and drop the actual group 'Grp_Proj_Manager' or 'Grp_Requester' drag the referenced template instead. If you drag the actual group, there will not be any error but while filling out the form, after you select the user from the AD, contact selector field will be grayed out.

Drag and drop the second group ('Grp_Requester') on to the designer.

Now you have two different contact selectors that holds two names.

In my example I explained 2 contact selectors. But, you can have 'n' number of contact selectors. Have fun!

Beginner's Sharepoint Custom webpart using Web Control Library

2007-01-24T13:54:00.000-08:00

VS 2005 -> File -> New Project ->Visual C# Projects -> Web Control Library.
Name it as 'Simple Webpart' and Specify the project location.
Add reference to Microsoft.Sharepoint.dll and System.XML

(Solution explorer -> References -> right click -> Add Reference -> .NET -> search and select the name spaces above.)
Add the following to the using section:

using System.Security;
using Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages;
using System.Xml.Serialization;

Edit the AsseblyInfo.cs to preserve a fixed version each time you build.
Replace the

[assembly: AssemblyVersion("1.0.*")]so that it reads[assembly: AssemblyVersion("1.0.0.0")]

Add the following statement in the AsseblyInfo.cs at the end.

[assembly: System.Security.AllowPartiallyTrustedCallers]
Chnage the name space so that we can have any number of webparts under a single namespace.

Replace
namespace SimpleWebPart
with
namespace MyWebParts
Change the class declaration to inherit from the webpart class.
Replace
public class SimpleWebPart : WebControl
with
public class SimpleWebPart : WebPart
Replace
protected override void Render(HtmlTextWriter output)
With
protected override void RenderWebPart(HtmlTextWriter output)
Add the code needed in the webpart, add necessary child controls you needed.
Replace the code in the Render webpart method with
withRenderChildren(output);
Strong name the assembly
Copy the dll to the 'bin' directory of the application.
C:\Intepub\wwwroot\wss\virtual directories\port number
GAC the assembly:
Drag and drop the dll to 'C\Windows\Assembly
Increase the Default Trust Level and Add a SafeControl Entry for your Web Part

Open the web.config file in the Web application root(C:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\virtual deirectories\port\web.config) -> In the level attribute of the trust section, change WSS_Minimal to WSS_Medium.

Add the assembly to the safe controls.
Within the web.config file opened above, locate the

<safe controls >

section and add the following:

<SafeControl Assembly="SimpleWebPart, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=PublicKeyToken" Namespace="MyWebParts" TypeName="SimpleWebPart" Safe="True"/>

In the above line, MyWebparts is a namespace.
SimpleWebPart is an assembly name.
PublicKeyToken:
C:\Windows\Assembly\SimpleWebPart -> right click -> properties.
(or)
you can find the key value from the following command.
Open the visual studio command prompt and type:
sn.exe -T C:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\PortNumber\bin\SimpleWebPart.dll

Open a notepad and copy paste the following lines;

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<WebPart xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebPart/v2;   <Assembly>SimpleWebPart, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=Neutral, PublicKeyToken=PublicKeyToken</Assembly>   <TypeName>MyWebParts.SimpleWebPart</TypeName> 
<Title>My Simple Web Part</Title> 
<Description>A simple Web Part</Description>
</WebPart>

Save the file as 'SimpleWebPart.dwp' and save at the bin folder, where the dll is copied
(C:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\PortNumber\bin\)

Site Actions -> Site settings -> galeeries -> Webparts -> upload -> browse to the above .dwp file.
Site Actions -> Edit Page -> Add Webpart -> drag and drop the webpart on the page.

This product can only be installed if Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 has been installed first

2007-01-23T18:16:00.000-08:00

Situation:

While trying to install VS extensions for sharepoint 2007/wss 3.0 on the machine that does not has sharepoint installed, get the following error.

Fix:

open the regedit and create the following keys and the string value

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0]
“Sharepoint”=”Installed”
If you are new to regester edit, simply copy the above text into a new notepad, save the notepad as 'temp.reg' -> double click on the temp.reg -> accept the warning.

The Path specified cannot be used at this time,Internet Information Services when sharepoint(MOSS) deployed.

2007-01-19T18:07:00.000-08:00

Problem Definition:

When you invoke the IIS Manager, it will take longer time than usual to open. And when it opens, opens with an Empty console. No Application pools, No Websites are found.
After that, when you try to connect the server remotely, error "The Path specified cannot be used at this time" was thrown.

Fix:

IIS Reset will solve the problem always. But there some other work arounds I heard from my colleague. Here they are:

Restart the Windows SharePoint Services Timer service.
Command Prompt -> change directory to .NET Framework folder
aspnet_regiis.exe -i

the type of page you have requested is not served because it has been explicitly forbidden. The extension .mdb may be incorrect.Please review the URL

2006-12-25T10:10:00.000-08:00

Situation:
After uploading a '.mdb' file on to sharepoint server, when you click on the '.mdb' file you get the error:
the type of page you have requested is not served because it has been explicitly forbidden. The extension .mdb may be incorrect.Please review the URL below and make sure that it spelled correctly.

Reason:
ISAPI extension for the '.mdb' is available in the IIS available ISAPI modules and trying to execute this extension. But the '.mdb' file is forbidden to execute on the server.

Fixes:

If you are not technical savy or do not have any permissions to do the below changes, Mouse hover on the file name in the doc lib and select "down load a copy" from the context menu.

Temp fix:
Take out the 'ISAPI extension' for the .MDB file from the IIS.
This will be fixed in 5 minutes, but needs the IIS to be halted.
Stop the IIS and do the following steps.

Go to the sharepoint server
IIS -> Websites
Right click on the web application -> properties
Home Directory -> Configuration
Scroll down the 'ISAPI' extensions -> select '.mdb' -> Remove.
iisreset

Permanent fix:
Take out the 'mdb' ISAPI module from the ASP.NET configuration.

Go to the CONFIG folder on the machine where, ASP.NET is installed.
dir:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\Version\CONFIG and open the web.config file

Search for the following snippet

in the <httpHandlers> section:

<add path="*.mdb" verb="*" type="System.Web.HttpForbiddenHandler" validate="True" />
AND
add the following lines

a)  <add path="*.mdb" verb="*" type="System.Web.UI.PageHandlerFactory" validate="True" />  in the <httpHandlers> section


b)  <add extension=".aspx" type="System.Web.Compilation.PageBuildProvider" /> in the <buildProviders> section

Content Editor Webpart Current Date time in sharepoint

2006-10-26T11:09:00.000-07:00

copy paste the code in the 'source editor' of a content editor webpart:

<SPAN id=tP> </SPAN> <SCRIPT type=text/javascript>function tS(){ x=new Date(tN().getUTCFullYear(),tN().getUTCMonth(),tN().getUTCDate(),tN().getUTCHours(),tN().getUTCMinutes(),tN().getUTCSeconds()); x.setTime(x.getTime()+dS()+34200000); return x; } function tN(){ return new Date(); } function dS(){ return ((tN().getTime()>fD(0,3,1,1).getTime())&&(tN().getTime()<fD(0,9,1,-1).getTime()))?3600000:0; } function fD(d,m,h,p){ var week=(p<0)?7*(p+1):7*(p-1),nm=(p<0)?m+1:m,x=new Date(tN().getUTCFullYear(),nm,1,h,0,0),dOff=0; if(p<0){ x.setTime(x.getTime()-86400000); } if(x.getDay()!=d){ dOff=(x.getDay()<d)?(d-x.getDay()):0-(x.getDay()-d); if(p<0&&dOff>0){ week-=7; } if(p>0&&dOff<0){ week+=7; } x.setTime(x.getTime()+((dOff+week)*86400000)); } return x; } function lZ(x){ return (x>9)?x:'0'+x; } function tH(x){ if(x==0){ x=12; } return (x>12)?x-=12:x; } function y2(x){ x=(x<500)?x+1900:x; return String(x).substring(2,4) } function dT(){ window.status=''+eval(oT)+'';  document.getElementById('tP').innerHTML=eval(oT); setTimeout('dT()',1000); } function aP(x){ return (x>11)?'pm':'am'; } var dN=new Array('Sun','Mon','Tue','Wed','Thu','Fri','Sat'),mN=new Array('Jan','Feb','Mar','Apr','May','Jun','Jul','Aug','Sep','Oct','Nov','Dec'),oT="dN[tS().getDay()]+' '+tS().getDate()+' '+mN[tS().getMonth()]+' '+y2(tS().getYear())+' '+':'+':'+' '+tH(tS().getHours())+':'+lZ(tS().getMinutes())+':'+lZ(tS().getSeconds())+aP(tS().getHours())";if(!document.all){ window.onload=dT; }else{ dT(); }</SCRIPT>

All About MSO Cache folder

2006-05-29T14:43:00.000-07:00

Some times you are tempted to delete the 'MSO Cache' folder as it contains huge data/content.
MSO Cache, aka 'Local install source' folder is empty until you try to install office applications from a CD. When you insert the office CD in to the device, system will check for the free space drive. If it finds any drive containing at leaset 1.5 GB free space, install source files are copied to this folder. These files are used when you click on the 'repair' option on the 'Add/Remove' control panel module and service pack updates.

Deleting the MSO Cache files:
Do not delete the 'MSo Cache' folder directly.

While installing office:
check the 'delete installation files' check box before clicking the 'finish'.
Any time After installing office"
Open the 'Disk Cleanup' tool located at :
start -> All programs -> Accessories -> System Tools
Check the 'Office setup files' check box and click to delete.

URL Redirection basics for IIS

2006-05-20T16:05:00.000-07:00

Source: http://blogs.msdn.com/david.wang/archive/2005/08/01/HOWTO_Common_URL_Redirection_Techniques_for_IIS_Summary.aspx

The web server can perform three types of redirection to handle any given request from the client:

Client-Side Redirection - The server sends a "302 Redirect" response with a Location: header containing the new URL, and the client makes another request to the new URL.
Server-Side Redirection - The server transparently rewrites the request URL to another URL which remains on the same website as the original.
(This Redirection is also known as CourtesyURL/Pretty URL/URL shadowing/URL masking Publishing or Exporting internal website to be accessible externally/Redirecting URL on one web server to be handled by another web server/One web server reverse-proxying another server/Force HTTP requests to HTTPS/SSL )
Server-Side Forwarding - The server transparently rewrites the request URL to another URL which does NOT remain on the same website as the original. Note the new website can be on another machine, but not necessarily.

Some people classify these types depending on the URL refresh. But its not correct.

Apache never has built in URL redirections. You need to install and configure add-on modules like mod_redirect to get Client-Side Redirection, mod_rewrite to get Server-Side Redirection, and mod_proxy to get Server-Side Forwarding. These are embedded into the httpd.config and .htaccess includes.

IIS Core has built-in Client-Side redirection and configurable via the HttpRedirect property. You need to install add-on modules to get Server-Side Redirection and Server-Side Forwarding behavior.

Redirection possibilities and technology to perform:

Client-Side Redirection using:
IIS "Core" (no code) - HttpRedirect
IIS "Core" (script code) - HttpErrors and ASP
ASP (script code) - Response.Redirect
ISAPI Filter (compiled code) - SF_REQ_SEND_RESPONSE_HEADER
ISAPI Extension (compiled code) - HSE_REQ_SEND_RESPONSE_HEADER, HSE_REQ_SEND_URL, HSE_REQ_SEND_URL_REDIRECT_RESP
Server-Side Redirection using:
IIS "Core" (no code involved) - IIsWebFile and ScriptMaps
ASP (some code involved) - Server.Transfer and Server.Execute (ASP only)
ISAPI Filter (compiled code) - SetHeader( "url" ) in SF_NOTIFY_PREPROC_HEADERS or SF_NOTIFY_AUTH_COMPLETE
ISAPI Extension (compiled code) - HSE_REQ_EXEC_URL and HSE_REQ_EXEC_UNICODE_URL and Wildcard Application Mapping
Server-Side Forwarding using:
ISAPI Filter (compilied code) - Using WinHttp
ISAPI Extension (compiled code) - Using WinHttp and Wildcard Application Mapping

dell note book no audio device showed in the contreol panel sounds utility

2006-02-07T19:52:00.000-08:00

After you re-install the windows on Dell Notebook (especially Inspiron e 1505), while trying to install the audio drivers, you will never get to install the drivers.

Reason:
This is due to the poor documentation from the dell support.
Every one trying to re-install the drivers will land into the Dell's support page:
http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/driverslist.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&SystemID=INSPIRONI6400/E1505&os=WW1&osl=en&servicetag=&catid=-1&impid=-1&deviceid=10430&libid=1&typeid=-1&dateid=-1&formatid=-1&releaseid=R152924&formatcnt=1&vercnt=9

You need to follow the order of installation. Dell never documented this order. Neither they specified the level of importance correctly. Usually all the users look at the 'Urgent' category and try to install them first. This will cause the mess.
Fix:
Follow the below order:

Install Dell Notebook System Software (on your downloads page expand the System Utilities category). Restart.
Next install the Intel Mobile Chipset driver (expand the Chipset category). Restart.
Install the Sigmatel audio driver (expand the Audio category). Restart not needed.

If you have already installed sigmatel before the steps2. Un install it first and re -install in the order. If you still can not get the sound, that means that there is a problem with the windows registry. Do the below steps to create the Registry key for the Sigmatel:

Open the device manager ( My Computer -> Right click -> Properties -> Hardware -> Device Manager)
Right click on the 'Media Controller' -> update driver.

Visual Studio 2005 missing application templates

2005-04-30T17:48:00.000-07:00

VS some times does not install all the templates by default.
You need to force the VS to include the templates for the dev.

Access the Visual Studio console:
Start- > All Programs -> Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 -> Visual Studio Tools -> Visual Studio Command Prompt.

Enter the following command and hit enter.

1. devenv /installvstemplates
No luck? go for the step 2.

2 . devenv /setup.
Still no luck, go for the following fixes.

3. Open the Options window in Visual Studio. Select Projects and Solutions. Change the Visual Studio user item template location to the folder where the standard templates are located ( C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\IDE\ItemTemplates ).

still no luck,
Download and install Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 - Update to Support Web Application Projects found at http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/reference/infrastructure/wap/default.aspx

Vertical Marquee for Annoncements in sharepoint's content editor webpart

2005-03-23T17:53:00.000-08:00

Write the following code in the 'Source Editor' of the content editor webpart's html and marquee tags!

marquee direction="UP" scrollamount="3" scrolldelay="200" width="500" height="50" bgcolor="BLUE">Insert text to scroll here!

second line! !

Options:
MARQUEE DIRECTION=UP /DOWN/LEFT/RIGHT

Fixed width cell in HTML in a sharepoint content editor webpart

2005-03-20T12:50:00.000-08:00

In order to hide the exrtra characters after 200 px :

td style="table-layout:fixed;width:200px"

In order to show the scroll balrs for the extra characters after 200px:

div style="height: 123px;> width: 200px; overflow: hidden">

Data Grid to Excel export error

2005-03-11T11:17:00.000-08:00

After trying to export a datagrid to excel with the MIME modification, you get the error:
"The file you are trying to open .xls is in a different format than specified by the file extension. verify the file is not corrupted and is from trusted source before opening the file. Do you want to open the file now"

Fix:
Add the following registry entry:
start -> run -> regedit -> HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\OFFICE\12.0\EXCEL\SECURITY -> in the right pane, rightclick -> New -> DWORD value -> name -> ExtensionHardening -> value -> '0'

Value: (DWORD)"ExtensionHardening" = [0 = Disable check; 1 = Enable check and prompt; 2 = Enable check, no prompt deny open]Default setting if value not present is 1 (enable and prompt).

If you do not know the code to export the grid results to excel, below is the code:

protected void btnExcel_Click(object sender, ImageClickEventArgs e)
   {     
 Response.Clear();
Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", "attachment;filename=FileName.xls");
Response.Charset = "";
// use the below code to open only .
Response.Cache.SetCacheability(HttpCacheability.NoCache);
Response.ContentType = "application/vnd.xls";
System.IO.StringWriter stringWrite = new System.IO.StringWriter();
System.Web.UI.HtmlTextWriter htmlWrite = new HtmlTextWriter(stringWrite);
this.ClearControls(grdResults);
grdResults.RenderControl(htmlWrite);
Response.Write(stringWrite.ToString());
Response.End();

    }

Sorting/filtering works only when there are literal controls present in the data. For a single non literal control, it fails to perform the special opearations.
Below is the code to remove the non-teralcontrols from being exported:

private void ClearControls(Control control)
{
  for (int i=control.Controls.Count-1; i>=0; i--) 
  {  
     ClearControls(control.Controls[i]); 
  }  
if (!(control is TableCell))  
{        
    if (control.GetType().GetProperty("SelectedItem") != null)           
      {              
        LiteralControl literal = new LiteralControl();              
        control.Parent.Controls.Add(literal);                                   
        literal.Text = (string)control.GetType().GetProperty("SelectedItem").GetValue(control,null);
                
         control.Parent.Controls.Remove(control);             
      }         
else         
if (control.GetType().GetProperty("Text") != null)            
  {                
     LiteralControl literal = new LiteralControl();                
     control.Parent.Controls.Add(literal);                
     literal.Text = (string)control.GetType().GetProperty("Text").GetValue(control,null);                
     control.Parent.Controls.Remove(control);                             
    }     
}
}

=3D and = characters in the ASP.NET/MVC HTML emails

2005-01-25T14:08:00.000-08:00

Problem:
While trying to send an HTML email from the ASP.NET, you get the junk strange characters in the output.
Eg: 1) appending "3D" (Style type =3D"text/CSS")
2) appending "=" between a two words (cell=padding)
Fix:

Modify the C# code to include the below:
MailMessage message = new MailMessage(SendFrom, SendTo);
var MyplainView = AlternateView.CreateAlternateViewFromString(msgBody,null,"text/html");
MyplainView.TransferEncoding = System.Net.Mime.TransferEncoding.SevenBit;
message.AlternateViews.Add(MyplainView);
message.IsBodyHtml = true;

Title field hell in Sharepoint lists!

2005-01-02T23:32:00.000-08:00

Situation:
While trying to delete the "title" field from any doc lib or list, the 'delete' button missing from the UI.

work around:
Find schema.xml for the coresponding list (located in c:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\60\TEMPLATE\1033\STS\LISTS\)
Search , access and delete the field.This will affect the behaviour for all the lists of that type (event,tasks ...). make a backup for the schema.xml, make changes, and save the list as a template; after you make all the mods, start over from this new template

Back To Top Anchor tag

2004-10-03T13:32:00.000-07:00

Use these logics if you have so many paragraphs on a web page that make the user to scroll all the way down and top.
back to top logic:

If you need to make the user go back to the top of the page from any location

Type "back to top" anywhere in a HTML.
link the "back to top" text to the self page URL with "#top" added at the end of the URL.
eg: if your html page that contais the line "back to top" is http://dnsname/sitename/pagename.html,
then your URL for the "back to top" link should be
http://dnsname/sitename/pagename.html#top

Named list anchor tags logic:
Use this when you have heading points(contents) listed on the top and all the explanation to the headings explained in the bottom. So in this scenario, upon clicking the URL on the top, page needs to crawl down to the corresponding location located in the bottom of the page.

Create the links on top of the page for the contents
eg: source1
Source2
Create the paragraphs for the explanations with at least a bullet point in the front.
Include an anchor node before the list item.
eg:
```
<LI><A name ="DestPara1"> Destination paragraph 1 explianed</LI>
```
```
<LI><A name ="DestPara2"> Destination paragraph 2 explianed</LI>
```
Now go back to the links on top of the page and link them with the Self Page URLs followed by "#anchor name".
eg: link the source1 word with the foll URL:
http://dnsname/sitename/pagename.html#DestPara1
link the source2 word with the foll URL:
http://dnsname/sitename/pagename.html#DestPara2

Remote Desktop Full Screen

2004-08-11T10:05:00.000-07:00

Problem:

While connecting to a remote desktop, you can not see the remote computer screen in full screen. When you maximize the screen, it will maximize the window as a typical windows option.

Fix:

1. Start -> Run
2. Type -> mstsc -> ok
3. On the Remote Desktop Connection popup, click on "Options >>"
4. Click on the "Display" tab.
5. In the "Remote Desktop size" section, drag the bar to the extreme right to see "Full screen".
6. ok.

Business English

2004-06-18T14:10:00.000-07:00

The english used by Managers, US folks in general!
RSVP:
R.S.V.P. stands for a French sentence, "répondez, s'il vous plaît," that can be translated to english like "Please respond asap". This is in french coz, french guys invented the etiquette and formal rules for social life. Whan a person sends an invitation would like you to tell him or her whether you accept or decline the invitation.
eg. 1. Team dinner at Restaurant. RSVP.
2. Did you RSVP the invitation ( verb).

Regrets Only:
unlike the above "RSVP", Some invitations will have "regrets only" notation at the end. That means that the host will count on you being there unless you tell him otherwise.

The Big Picture:
The big picture is a complete view of every piece of a business situation.
eg. “Thanks for bringing this idea to my attention. Let’s step back and see the big picture for a second…yes, this idea will encourage the sales guys thus profits to the company."

I Second that:
Means, I agree with what you said.
This started formally with the bill motion in the parliament. If the bill is produced, some has to second it, then then the bill has to pass 2/3 majority.

sweet spot:
Sweet spot refers to an ideal combination of inputs, attributes or processes.
Finding the sweet spot results in higher profits, stronger market share and/or maximum efficiency.
eg, a Production Manager updating his boss might say, “We’ve really hit a sweet spot on the production line. We’re producing 15% more than same quarter last year, and have eliminated overtime hours!”

Playing Field:
A playing field is the competitive space where business occurs. Like many US buzzwords, businesspeople borrowed this term from the world of sports. They completed the metaphor by calling competitors “players.”
Eg,
A manager might say, “I’ve been hearing good buzz about Best Company Ever. Let’s map out the playing field to discover the positions of all the players in the marketplace. We might have a good acquisition target on our hands.”

Throw A Wrench into:
To throw a wrench into something (e.g. the plan, the system, the idea) means to introduce a problematic variable into the equation. This term is often used in an almost apologetic manner. eg:
“I don’t mean to throw a wrench into the plan, but we can’t shoot that television spot in July because our model is booked for the entire month!”

30,000 foot view
Imagine an aerial photograph shot from high above a location, and you’ve got the genesis of 30,000 foot view. Leaders take a 30,000 foot view when they want understand the big picture to guide business strategy.
Eg,
a manager might say, “Our biggest competitor entered this space with their launch last month. Let’s step back and take a 30,000 foot view of the play field to plot our best moves for the next five selling cycles.”

Hit a snag:
Running into an unexpected problem.
Eg: Our plans to migrate the old database hit a snag, when we realized that there is a low space on the new database.

PEBCAK:
PEBCAK stands for "Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard". Used often in IT/Network support centers. When some one has asked you to fix some thing that is not at all went wrong, you say its a "PEBCAK" issue.
eg.
user: I can not see my computer working.
Tom: hey Dave, please look into the problem.
Dave: Thats just a PEBCAK with the user. She will never switch on the computer in first place and keeps calling the tech support. Tell the stupid user to switch on first.

Bal Park Figure:
Rough, tentative estimation.
eg, So, you are willing to take this project, can you come back to me with a ball park figure next week, so that I will take a decision.

Conversational English

2004-06-18T14:03:00.000-07:00

Conversational English:

Y'all:
Y’all is used in the southern United States as the plural for you;
it’s a contraction of you all, and serves its purpose quite well.
eg. y'all have a wonderful meal!

Dawg:
African version of dude. Usually slanged by african americans.
eg: waddup dawg?

Play it by Ear :
To play it by ear means to approach a situation without a plan, and let events unfold naturally. Playing it by ear doesn’t happen often in the US, especially in business, because a lot of Americans plan everything they do from careers to meetings to social events.
eg. I planned for football, golf yesterday. One of my friends took me to Tennis court, what I did not do till today. But after getting the balls moving with my punch shots.. I came to know that I just played it by ear!

Beer under the bridge:
Fighting on a bad day and saying sorry that one was drunk.
eg: Hey, Yesterday I was bit harsh at ya. you know wat I was blitzed.. it was like beer under the bridge.

kind of a big deal :
Praising some one how important they are in a comic/surcastic way.
Thinking that whole world is nothing and no one can stop on the way.
eg: I just got a contract from Microsoft, Now I am kind of a big deal.

Put the boot in:
Taking advantage of a person when he is in a weak position. Crushing some one at the down way.
eg: knowing that Sam can not sell the cars, all the managers yelled at him and put the boot in.

Same page:
Means sync with each other. In an understanding.
eg, teacher, Please brief me the updates of the previous week classes, so that I will be in same page with other students.

Howzitwork?
This is a german word stands for "How is it works?"

There are no active mixer devices available. To install mixer devices, Go to Control Panel and Other Hardware

2004-04-03T11:36:00.000-08:00

Very often, I was getting audio problems with my lappy. Sound was going mute while watching movies or mixer impacts. While clicking on the sound options, The below error was raised.

There are no active mixer devices available. To install mixer devices, Go to Control Panel and Other Hardware

Fix:

Go to start -> Run -> serviecs.msc -> windows audio -> start.